Ash and Absence

• Prize
  Gold in Special Categories/AI-Generated Images
• Photographer
  Rayito Flores Pelcastre
• Agency / Studio
  Catako
• Technical Info
  Ai-generated Portraits From Archives, Using Ashes As Material Memory
• Photo Date
  2024-2025

Ash and Absence revives the invisible faces of children forced to clean chimneys in the 18th and 19th centuries, lives rarely recorded in images. Based on historical records, official newspapers and postcards, the project uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct impossible portraits, to evidence the silence left by their absence. Hope is rooted in the social struggle and in the work of The Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, whose efforts led to the 1840 Act and later reforms banning child labor in chimneys.