Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Mining, Coal and DH Lawrence

Mining, Coal and DH Lawrence

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Mining, Coal and DH Lawrence

Matthew Sweet looks at the connections between the arts and coal mining communities.

Matthew Sweet looks at the influence of mining on the early life of DH Lawrence, traditions in the Durham coal region and the art of Prabhakar Pachpute on show at Artes Mundi.

Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price.  His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis.  In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents.

Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now.
Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39
Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.  You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35 

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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