Culture And Memory

The Silent Volunteer Project

In partnership with Coalfields Regeneration Trust and a steering group of people/organisations with lived experience, we’ll create an exhibition to document, interpret and share the heritage of Wales’s coal tips - one of the most significant, endangered forms of industrial heritage in the UK. We’ll collect oral histories, photographs, documents and objects from communities living in the shadow of the tips, and information from organisations about their past, present and future, the dangers and possibilities. The exhibition will accompany our tour to nine Welsh venues, of our play, The Silent Volunteer, about Aberfan, and the dangers of staying silent. We’ll create a public conversation through community engagement and post-show discussions, during the 60th anniversary. The exhibition will then be sited at two venues in RCT (highest concentration of remaining dangerous coal tips) including St Elfan’s, Aberdare, starting point for a new mining trail, which hosted the play’s R&D.