SCHISTIME (schist that has already been time) : photobook by paula roush. 152 pages, 83 photographs, english text, 21 x 29.7 cm, hardcover, sewn binding, 160 gsm matte paper, ISBN 978-0-9553793-8-3, msdm publications.
SCHISTIME documents the memory of a place, deep in the mountain of Gois, in the centre of Portugal. The villages are almost deserted as the result of an authoritarian regime that planted the commons (a crucial resource for the locals’ cooperative way of life) with pine trees destined to private profit. This happened in the first decades of the 20th century leading to an abandonment of the area that still persists. Today the area is being rebranded as the schist landscape. The rebuilt houses stand side by side with the ruins, coexisting in a state of entropy, between decay and growth.