In 2010 and 2011, Photographer Edgar Martins gained exclusive access to 20 power plants located across Portugal. Many were built between the 1950s and 1970s, a time of hopeful prospects for rapid economic growth and social change throughout the country. Forty years on, these plants are mainly computer operated. No more than half a dozen people, including specialists, cleaning and security staff, now run these plants which, in some cases, were intended to house up to 250 workers just a few decades ago.

The Time Machine records objects and spaces whose grand and progressive designs testify to the scope and ambition of the vision they were built to serve. Although the power stations were conceived at a time when man and machine envisaged a shared future, today, these deserted technical sites allude to the paradox of this impossibility.
Martins’ photographs recall science-fiction and in an unavoidable field of nostalgia, characterise a suspended time; that of the modern. In recovering a past of exciting technological innovation and optimistic belief in the future, The Time Machine speaks not just about the generation of power but also of dreams and technological utopias.