Before and After Coal: Images and Voices from Scotland’s Mining Communities
Portrait gallery, Queen Street, Edinburgh
23 March – 15 September 2025 – Admission Free
It’s 40 years for the reason that Miners’ Strike in 1984. To commemorate this historic occasion, a brand new exhibition on the Portrait gallery in Edinburgh explores the historical past and lasting impression of coal, by pictures and voices from Scottish mining communities.
Opening tomorrow (Saturday 23 March), Before and After Coal: Images and Voices from Scotland’s Mining Communities is the primary exhibition of its variety to be held on the National Galleries of Scotland.
This free exhibition is a celebration of Scotland’s mining historical past, created in collaboration with mining communities from throughout the nation, artist Nicky Bird and the National Galleries of Scotland. Support has been supplied from the National Lottery by Creative Scotland, the gamers of the People’s Postcode Lottery and the Scottish Government.
Before and After Coal: Images and Voices from Scotland’s Mining Communities takes over the Portrait’s Robert Mapplethorpe Photography Gallery and the adjoining Upper Great Hall till 15 September.
There are over 70 objects to find, together with pictures, banners, contact sheets, private mining memorabilia and video footage, all documenting actual lives and lived experiences.
The exhibition is a tribute to Scotland’s mining historical past, informed by those that formed it, lived it, and proceed to be impacted by it. Hear tales from miners about their work, households and the exceptional group spirit of mining cities and villages. Through movie, audio and anecdotes, they, and those that stay within the communities immediately, categorical their emotions about what has modified since 1984 and the legacy that has endured.
In 1982, American photographer Milton Rogovin got here to Scotland to seize photographs of Scottish miners at their pits, of their properties and through their leisure time. Born in New York in 1909, Rogovin was considered one of America’s most vital social documentary photographers.
Initially coaching as an optometrist, he was profoundly affected by the Great Depression which swept throughout America all through the Nineteen Thirties. Turning to pictures to specific his views, Rogovin used his work as a medium to indicate the often-forgotten faces in society.
Now, artist Nicky Bird has revisited and up to date Rogovin’s pictures by her challenge Mineworkings, assembly with former mineworkers and their households who had been linked with the unique photographs taken throughout Rogovin’s time in Scotland.
Originating from analysis beginning in 2018, Mineworkings was granted help from Creative Scotland’s open fund for people in 2023, made potential with funds from the National Lottery.
Through group outreach work from 2021 to 2023, the National Galleries of Scotland additionally performed a collection of workshops and occasions with individuals from former mining communities in Fife, East Ayrshire and the Lothians.
Participants shared the tales behind Rogovin’s photographs, as they recognised their fathers and moms, grandpas and grannies, workmates and buddies. Some even noticed themselves, 40 years on.
During the National Galleries of Scotland’s workshops, former miners and their households posed for portraits in entrance of the unique Rogovin photographs, some donning orange miners’ overalls and helmets in tribute.
These pictures, along with video footage, banners and different objects on show within the exhibition, inform the tales of life in Scotland, Before and After Coal. Local faculty college students in former mining communities additionally contributed to the event of the exhibition, volunteering their ideas about Scotland’s mining previous and the impression it has had on them immediately and will have sooner or later.
See Milton Rogovin’s unique pictures on show for the primary time, facet by facet with Nicky Bird’s up to date photographs, highlighting the stark contrasts and nostalgic similarities of a life earlier than and after coal mining. Works on show embrace portraits of former miners comparable to Place and Return with Jim Rutherford, 2023.
Living and dealing in East Ayrshire, Jim Rutherford was photographed by Milton Rogovin throughout his go to to Scotland in 1982; a picture Rutherford had lengthy forgotten about and solely noticed for the primary time through the Mineworkings challenge.
Striking the same pose, Jim was photographed once more, this time by Nicky Bird in 2023, over 40 years on from the forgotten Rogovin picture. Displayed collectively, these photographs present not solely the inevitable adjustments which are introduced with time and the disappearance of an business, but in addition the enduring similarities that shine by individuals and the locations vital to their tales.
Visitors can even see work created for the exhibition by the group engagement individuals and native faculty youngsters inside Scotland’s mining communities.
Reflecting on the previous and contemplating the longer term, the individuals have interpreted Scotland’s mining story in their very own method by movie, music, bodily objects in addition to iconic protest banners – an enduring and immediately recognisable ingredient from the miners’ historical past.
The documentary movie After Burn (2024), which presents the experiences of former miners and their households from Fife, Ayrshire and Midlothian, varieties a central a part of this group outreach work.
On show to the general public for this primary time, the movie provides a first-hand account about what it was wish to be a miner, or stay inside a mining group, and what has occurred to these communities now the mines are gone.
The voices of younger individuals are additionally weaved into the exhibition, as they think about immediately’s challenges of world heating and on-line tradition – in distinction to the miners previous experiences. Harnessing their creativity and impressed by the mining roots of their hometowns, this new technology of faculty youngsters have used ‘the art of protest’ and rap movies to specific themselves.
The exhibition is accompanied by a free audio information, which incorporates tales from former miners concerned within the improvement of this exhibition and Paula Rogovin, Milton Rogovin’s daughter. Authentic anecdotes, reflective ideas and infectious humour all through the audio information will elevate the messages behind the work on show, bringing guests even nearer to the individuals on the coronary heart of this exhibition.
The dedication to group outreach will proceed all through the exhibition’s run, and into the longer term. Visitors to Before and After Coal will have the ability to document their ideas, reminiscences and emotions sparked by the exhibition on a memorial wall throughout the gallery area, building on the legacy of the Mineworkings challenge.
There may even be a chance to step into historical past and put together for a day down within the pits with reproduction miners’ overalls and helmets available to strive on.
Anne Lyden, Director-General on the National Galleries of Scotland mentioned: “Working with Scotland’s mining communities on this exceptional challenge has sparked a brand new method of making an exhibition on the National Galleries of Scotland.
“It was integral from the start that Before and After Coal needs to be created by the consultants – the individuals who have expertise of residing and dealing within the mining communities throughout the nation.
“This free exhibition is the story of mining in Scotland, informed by those that lived it; actual tales informed by the people who find themselves in them and reflections from generations who’re nonetheless impacted by what’s gone earlier than.
“From the preliminary present and inform classes, by to the event and now opening of the exhibition, there was an unwavering ardour to harness the group spirit that’s so necessary to these whose lives have been formed by coal mining.
“Each participant is on the very coronary heart of Before and After Coal, and it merely wouldn’t have been potential to carry this present to life with out their enter. Thanks to all of them for trusting us with their historical past, in addition to the unwavering dedication, considerate perception and infectious humor that they’ve introduced in abundance!
“We can’t wait for our visitors to discover the images and voices of the Scotland’s mining communities and hope they will join us in sharing their own memories of this important, and ever-relevant, era in Scotland’s history.”
Nicky Bird, artist and creator of Mineworkings mentioned: “It has been an actual privilege working with such a variety of sensible people and group teams throughout Ayrshire, Midlothian and Fife.
“The generosity of time and willingness to share tales, reminiscences, and experiences with me has been unimaginable. Without them, it will not have been potential to retrace the journey that Milton and Anne Rogovin made in 1982 – however greater than that – to know what this implies immediately.
“There has been a very real and urgent sense that ‘the time is now’ to make sure that mining history and its legacies, in all its complexity, is not forgotten.”
Before and After Coal: Images and Voices from Scotland’s Mining Communities opens on the Portrait gallery in Edinburgh on Saturday 23 March 2024 and is free for everybody to take pleasure in.
