We Stand Still

This engaging exhibition presents the work of South Yorkshire born Moira Lovell, an award-winning photographer and daughter of a coal miner.

In 'We Still Stand', Moira has drawn together three discrete photographic series, each captured during the 25th anniversary of the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike; together, they present a striking contrast between past and present.

The first series of photographs, which is titled ‘We Still Stand’, shows South Yorkshire coal miners, former and current, pictured at night in the landscapes of their former collieries and picket grounds - 25 years after battles were fought and lost. In ‘These Hills are not Hills’, Lovell makes a contemporary homage to Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s painting Coalbrookdale at Night (1801); the man-made hills which are pictured in the subtle light of the surrounding pit villages are powerful symbols of the physical changes that have taken place in the mining communities and the landscape. In ‘Coal Faces’, photographed at Maltby colliery, miners are dramatically captured emerging out of the darkness.

The exhibition also includes some of Moira’s personal photographs and reference books which are complemented by a display of selected photographs, works of art and books from the Museum’s permanent collection.

Moira Lovell is an artist and lecturer in photography at the University of Salford. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and is held by major national collections. In 2007 she won the Jerwood Photography Prize and she received a Magenta Foundation Award in 2008. Pavilion in Leeds and The Photographers’ Gallery, London have recently commissioned Moira to create new work.