He says | She says: On new nails and ancient Greeks

‘Industrial culture’ is one of those terms I kept hearing about but never really understood. Aren’t industry and culture rather contradictory? Amongst the pile of useless knowledge I picked up during my studies is the fact that a self-contradictory term is an ‘oxymoron’. “So like ‘literary studies’?” I asked my lecturer back then, and he realised, with a touch of envy, that I was even more precocious than he was. I completed my degree with a touch of sarcasm and ended up in – wait for it – the cultural industry. Karma.

But industrial culture is only seemingly an oxymoron. Put simply, it refers to cases where industrial heritage has become so integral to identity that people regard it as part of their culture. And the ‘Nagli’ in Winterthur is precisely such a case. Nails have been manufactured in this small factory for 130 years, and that’s exactly what it looks like inside: as if time had stood still since 1895. It’s a must-see.

This summer, a second organisation joined the association that voluntarily preserves this gem alongside the factory operations: scenographer Melanie Mock has assembled a team that has created a sensory tour featuring choreography, sounds, lights and voices from the past. The work is called ‘Archimedes Dreams’ and poetically traces a path from the origins of life through antiquity to the present day.

‘We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us,’ the voice in the headphones warns. This phrase, most recently applied to algorithms and AI, also applies to the time-honoured nail-making machines. They have not only stamped metal pins for years, but also shaped generations of people who are preserving an important piece of industrial heritage for us here.

I used to be a singer. And as such, I was always on the lookout for creative concert venues, from observatories and baroque castles to SAC huts. It’s hardly surprising, then, that an invitation to Switzerland’s only remaining nail factory piqued my curiosity immensely.

So, in the sweltering June heat, we hopped on our bikes and cycled towards ‘Nagli’, without really knowing what awaited us there. Even after the speeches (the project marks the factory’s 130th anniversary), I wasn’t much the wiser. But I was actually even more curious.

Armed with headphones, we entered the factory grounds. And as if that weren’t exciting enough, performers soon began darting through our ranks. Sometimes re-enacting a stylised working day, sometimes dancing, sometimes frozen in place, they turned the tour into an immersion in the history of this special place. Sound collages and voices rang out, the latter also in revealing quotes from factory life of times long past. A magical experience, I thought. And one that made me feel almost a little wistful about having, wait for it, hung up my hat on the profession I’d trained for.

But now comes the big ‘but’: as we learnt, the 600 tickets were already sold out by the time of the premiere. Which is, of course, a shame for you, dear reader. What can we learn from this? When beautiful posters suddenly appear around town for something we can hardly imagine, perhaps we should just go and buy a ticket.