Exhibition marks 40 years since miners’ strike

A new exhibition across County Durham is using art and sound to reflect on the legacy of the 1984-85 miners’ strike and explore the identity of post-industrial communities four decades on.

Opening at The Warehouse, in Bishop Auckland, on Friday, June 13, Going Back Brockens features 40 new paintings by Narbi Price, portraying former colliery sites as they appear today. 

These are paired with a sound installation by Mark Hudson, revisiting interviews from Mark’s book Coming Back Brockens (1994), which capture the raw and emotive voices of those who lived through the strike in the village of Horden, following the colliery’s closure in 1987. 

Produced by Building Culture CIC and commissioned by No More Nowt, the project includes short films and a community archive capturing stories from County Durham’s post-mining towns.

Narbi, a painter, curator and lecturer, said: “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. 

“These former pit villages, and the people that live in them, have tales to tell – not just stories of their industrial past, but new stories of the now, and of hope, progress and evolution.

“The landscapes themselves also tell stories, and when I was choosing which sites to feature in my paintings, I revisited Mark’s fantastic book. 

“His incredible archive of interviews recorded after the miners’ strike has never been heard before. 

“They have a very powerful dialogue with the paintings which really brings people’s stories to life.”

Mark added: “The 86 hours of interviews I did here in Horden 30 years ago were largely concerned with the miners’ strike, which was then very recent. 

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

“The pit was the purpose of Horden, and everything revolved around it – including my father’s family.

“A lot of Narbi’s paintings are about places that became monuments of a disappearing culture. 

“Combined with the spoken word, you develop this powerful rhetoric.”

The three-part exhibition will also appear at the Durham Miners’ Gala in July and Horden Colliery’s 125th anniversary celebrations on Friday, August 22.

All the exhibitions are free to attend. To find out more, see here.

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