Miners' strike legacy and loss viewed 40 years on

The exhibition features 40 paintings, videos and interviews exploring the mining heritage of County Durham

A new exhibition is exploring loss and changing landscapes following the demise of the mining industry.

Going Back Brockens: Monuments and Rhetoric After the Miners' Strike is a three-part display of paintings and sound installations looking at the post-strike landscape in County Durham.

Artist Narbi Price, who co-curated the exhibition, said he was fascinated that generations of people were living in places "shaped by mining" but with no "living memory" of it.

He collaborated with writer Mark Hudson and asked members of the public to share their stories, including videos, for a community archive.

"The combination of paintings and sound explores not only what was lost, but what remains, what has changed, and how people continue to define their places and memories decades after the last coal was mined," Mr Price said.

Artist Narbi Price (left) and Mark Hudson in front of St Mary's church in Horden, one of the venues hosting a part of the exhibition

Mr Price's 40 paintings produced during the 40th anniversary year of the 1984-5 miners' strike depict former colliery sites as they are today which he said were "silent spaces once central to working-class life, now reclaimed, repurposed, or left behind".

"I find it really interesting that we have generations of people living in places that are entirely shaped by mining, but might have no living memory of it themselves," he said.

The works are paired with sound installations by Mr Hudson of recorded interviews for his 1991 book Coming Back Brockens about those who lived through the strike.

"The 86 hours of interviews I did in Horden 30 years ago were largely concerned with the miners' strike, which was then very recent," Mr Hudson said.

"In between the strike and me arriving in the village, the pit had closed."

The three-part exhibition opens on 13 June at the Warehouse, in Newgate Shopping Centre, Bishop Auckland

The exhibition opens on 13 June at the Warehouse, in Newgate Shopping Centre, Bishop Auckland and, on 12 July, will form part of the 139th Durham Miners' Gala.