Brenda Burrell
My first Solo Show in some time is opening this afternoon at the Decisive Moment Gallery at the Arts Centre in Darlington.
This is an exerpt from my blurb:
The last Seaham coal mine was forcibly closed twenty years ago.
Brenda Burrell inhabits and documents the uneasy survival of this coastal pit village from the inside: its uniquely English architecture and vibrant, indefatigable people.
After a spirited struggle, the mine, one of the most productive in Europe, was finally closed in 1991, putting a whole community out of work, its buildings, and all surrounding supply industries shattered and then bulldozed.
The twenty intervening years has seen photographers Simon Norfolk, John Davies, Sirkka Liisa Konttinen and the Billy Elliot filmmaker Lee Hall walk the empty brown wastes of the former mine land, comb the now beautiful deserted beaches, making art where the pit waste once was dumped.This latest and ongoing series of works shows the younger inhabitants of the village twenty years after the pit closed, those whose fathers were barely toddlers themselves during the days of coal, the neatly dressed windows and weather-washed streets embarking on a new century.
There’s going to be a buffet, wine and cake, and some of my family are coming, so I’m not as nervous as I thought I might be. But it’s a tough crowd, and I’ll be grateful and willing to hear all and any comments and criticisms, as ever.
Hopefully, I’ll see you later. If you can come another time, it’s on until the 17th December – please do let me know and we’ll meet for a cuppa.
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