SWML @ 50The South Wales Miners' Library at 50
Events at the South Wales Miners’ Library
Here are some of the events that we organised to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. We hope to have many more throughout the anniversary year, watch this space!
Thursday 19th October 2023 – ‘Pop Up’ South Wales Miners’ Library at Taliesin Create
We took a small exhibition to Taliesin Create for staff and students to view. The exhibition was a 'snapshot' of the material which is held at the South Wales Miners' Library.
It was great to see so many friendly faces and have some great conversations and questions about our collections.
Friday 20th October 2023 – South Wales Miners’ Library Open Day & Library Tours
We had three guided tours around the library and it was wonderful to welcome so many visitors.
Some came for a tour and others just came for the tea and cake, all told it was a lovely day!
Huw Irranca-Davies the Welsh Labour and cooperative Member of the Senedd for Ogmore, popped in to cut the cake.
Friday 20th October 2023 – South Wales Miners’ Library 50th Anniversary Lecture
The South Wales Miners' Library Annual Lecture was a wonderful event. It was a privilege to have the VC Paul Boyle and Dai Smith to say a few words at the start and an honour to have J. Willgoose Esq. to deliver the Rhys Davies lecture, 'Celebrating Fifty Years of the South Wales Miners' Library'.
The lecture was preceded by a drinks reception and it was great to see so many in attendance.
We brought along a small exhibition that Julie Came created in 2017 in response to the album Every Valley, we were all very proud to be involved with such a wonderful album.
Saturday 21st October - ‘Knowledge is Power’ – 50 Years of the South Wales Miners’ Library and Llafur: the Welsh People’s History Society
Since 1973, the South Wales Miners’ Library has preserved and championed the ‘Resources of Hope’ of mining communities from across South Wales. It has been supported in this half-century endeavour by Llafur: the Welsh People’s Society, once referred to as ‘the political wing of the Miners’ Library’ by Hywel Francis. To mark 50 years of this enduring connection, join us at the Waterfront Museum in Swansea on Saturday 21st October (10am-4pm) where we will discuss the past, present and future of Llafur and the South Wales Miners’ Library.
Tuesday 12th March to Friday 15th March – 40th Anniversary of the 1984/85 Miners' Strike Exhibition at the DOVE Workshop
The South Wales Miners' Library organised an exhibition of the 1984/85 Miners' Strike to mark the 40th anniversary.
The event was held at the DOVE Workshop during the week of 12th - 15th March 2024.
The exhibition was made up of film, banners, photographs, posters, pamphlets and books, which were supplied from the special collections held at the library.
The event was very well attended and it was wonderful to hear the stories and recollections.
Anne Jones, Sian James & Mair Francis
As a result of this exhibition, our posters were used in another exhibition at Queen Street Galley Neath, thank you to Scott Keenan for organising.
Take a look at their webpage: Queen Street Gallery
Saturday 20th April to Sunday 26th May - MinersImprint: An exhibiton of work to Celebrate the fifty-year anniversary of the South Wales Miners' Library (SWML).
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
Exploring the rich resource of the South Wales Miners’ Library – an extensive collection of banners and books, testimonies, posters and plans – SPW printmakers made discoveries and connections with the people and land that have been touched and shaped by the coal mining industry in this area of Wales.
In the year marking the forty-year anniversary of the significant Miners’ Strike of 1984, it seems very apposite to be showing alongside MinersImprint, 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.
The close and uncompromising observations in his work demonstrate the artist’s long-standing intimacy and solidarity with miners’ lives and the mining communities.
The late Hywel Francis, MP for Aberavon 2001–2015 and a founder of the South Wales Miners’ Library commented in the publication Foreword: “They tell a story of an age and time that is gone, or so it seems, but it is an age and time which still invades the present ...”
The new collection of work by SPW contemporary printmakers invites us to share knowledge and to educate ourselves about life in the past and to remember and recognise the imprint of mining history on our lives today. It reflects the role and importance of collections like the SWML for our collective understanding of the social fabric and dynamics – past, present and future – of communities across south Wales and beyond.
Continues with exclusive access every Saturday and Sunday from 21 April to 26 May, 9am-5pm and Friday 10 May 9am-10pm.
Taliesin is fully accessible to visitors. Exhibition space is in lower ground floor open studio space.