anna maria barry-jester, journalist

photography: the balloon factory

  • esperanza_01
  • esperanza_02
  • The air in La Nueva Esperanza is thick with talc powder. When inhaled, talc causes lung damage. Despite health risks, many workers do not comply with safety standards as they find the masks cumbersome to work with. According to workers, the previous owner did not require or supply all of the appropriate safety equipment
  • With only 35 workers in a factory that once employed over 200, the cooperative has a difficult time completing orders.
  • Most everything at La Nueva Esperanza is done manually. The ability to produce specialty shaped balloons has allowed the company to compete with lower priced imports from China and Brazil.
  • After shutting the doors to the factory, the ex-ownder illegally removed equpment and tried to reopen the factory outside of Buenos Aires under a different name in order to claim bankruptcy on the old factory. Workers camped out in protest for nine months before a judge ordered the equpment returned and gave control of the factory to the workers. Under a special business recuperation law, the Argentinian government has allowed over 600 businesses to operate under cooperative status.
  • Domingo works as Business Manager of La Nueva Esperanza. As many of the workers lack even a high school education, they had difficulty with pricing and distribution of goods after first earning cooperative status. La Nueva Esperanza is now also home to an education program several days a week helping local residents earn a high school diploma.
  • Argentina's oldest balloon facoty has been under worker control since 2004. Originally opened in the 1940's, after years of tax evasion, the previous owner closed the factory over a weekend, owing the workers months of back pay. Since attaining cooperative status, workers/co-owners of the factory say it has been a struglle, but they have managed to maintain a profit.
  • Workers watch as a fire burns a building in downtown Buenos Aires next to their biggest client. While the factory used to sell balloons in Argentina, Uruguay, and the United States, since becoming a cooperative they have struggled to sell even outside of the Buenos Aires province in recent years. Previous clients have said they worry about the legitimacy of the factory since it became a cooperative.
  • Female workers clean up before eating lunch in their dressing room. The inherant problems of decision making in a cooperative have caused social rifts amongst workers. Where they once ate a group meal together in the lunch room, they now seperate to different parts of the factory.
  • Juan, who has worked at La Nueva Esperanza for over two decades, lives on the outskirts of Buenos Aires with his daughter and wife, who have a sewing business in their home. According to juan, the emotional and financial support of his family allowed him to spend nine months protesting and petitioning for the reopening of the factory.
  • esperanza_12
  • Women celebrate a birthday inside the factory dressing room. Despite social rifts due to differences of opinion on how to spend factory money, workers sitll interact on a very personal level, celebrating birthdays and spending weekends together.
  • Workers at La Nueva Esperanza feel they are a microcosm of a larger issue in Argentina: they have all of the promise and potential necessary, but a legacy of poor management and corruption have left a long bumpy road to recovery.
  • selected writing
  • photography
    • the island of widows
    • in the wake
    • pakistan floods
    • health: india
    • evangelizing nicaragua
    • the balloon factory
    • diary (instagram)
  • video
    • Mystery in the Fields: Sri Lanka
    • Mystery in the Fields
    • The Island of Widows
  • client login
  • about
  • contact

anna maria barry-jester. Site design © 2010-2025 Neon Sky Creative Media