South Wales Miners’ Library Project
A collaboration between Swansea University and Swansea Print Workshop to celebrate the South Wales Miner’s Library 50th anniversary
In 2023/24, Swansea Print Workshop printmakers have been exploring the rich resource of the South Wales Miners’ Library (SWML) – an extensive collection of banners and books, testimonies, posters and plans – and creating contemporary prints in response.
We are delighted to be showing in April–May 2024, MINERSIMPRINT, an exhibition of work selected by Swansea University for their collection for the new premises of SWML (in 2024) and which will also be included in the archives of the University and SPW and held in the collections of all six UK and Ireland National Libraries.
A collaboration between the South Wales Miners’ Library
and Swansea Print Workshop to celebrate the SWML’s 50th anniversary
Showcasing a new collection of work by SPW printmakers
With a suite of work by Paul Peter Piech
from Coal, A Sonnet Sequence
INVITATION
Exhibition opens on Saturday 20 April 2024, 1pm until 3pm
@ Taliesin Create Studio,
Ground Floor, Taliesin Arts Centre,
Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PZ
And continues with exclusive access every
Saturday and Sunday from 21 April to 26 May, 9am-5pm
and Friday 10 May 9am-10pm.
Create Studio is a working studio space; when not in use the exhibition is available to view during other Arts Centre opening times. Taliesin is fully accessible to visitors. Exhibition space is in lower ground floor open studio space.
Evening/Weekend parking available on campus £2.00 for 4hrs. Mon/Fri parking available at recreation ground, Mumbles Road or Pub on the Pond, charges apply.
In the year marking the forty-year anniversary of the significant Miners’ Strike of 1984, it seems very appropriate to also be showing a suite of prints by Paul Peter Piech drawn from the Cultural Collections of Swansea University.
These prints are illustrations from Coal, A Sonnet Sequence by John Gurney published in 1994, to mark the closure of the Tower Colliery, the last deep coal mine in South Wales.
From Swansea University, Siân Williams (Head of Cultural Collections Engagement and Curation, Library and Collections) and Mark Heycock (Art Collection and Creative Engagement Coordinator) were delighted by the range of work created through the project – in all 32 prints – and they had the very difficult task of selecting the 21 prints for the collection.
We are pleased to be exhibiting all 32 prints by project participants on our dedicated online exhibition site: Swansea Printmakers a fantastic body of work by SPW artists across our membership from professional printmakers to emerging artists. Exhibition opens in April 2024.
Individual prints from MINERSIMPRINT by SPW printmakers can be purchased from Prints for Sale in our Online Shop.
All Paul Peter Piech images used by kind permission of Olwen Stocker.
A collaboration with Swansea University to produce prints in celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the Miners’ Library and its relocation to new premises in 2024.
SPW have been working with Mark Heycock and Sian Williams, Head of Special Collections, Swansea University, to develop this project.
The Miners’ Library Collection is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is also projected to move to new premises by 2024.
It is intended that we have a set of prints to exhibit which will celebrate the opening of both the new premises and the 50th anniversary. The final prints for a small edition to be part of the University Collection will be chosen by a panel.
A MEMBERS ONLY opportunity to take part in this prestigious project
Membership of this group is now closed | participants page can be found here
We are very much at the research level in terms of the material available to us and we will be refining that process over the next few months. We anticipate that members will have access to the large amount of material at the Miners’ Library in organized group sessions as well as independently. We are also considering organizing a trip to the Big Pit to start gathering visual material.
You can see a selection of earlier projects in our archive section including two projects Dylan Thomas Dialogues and Dylan Thomas, especially when the October wind where box sets of prints were created and which are now held in the collections of all the National UK Libraries.
