Aberfan, Wales — 21 October 1966
On 21 October 1966 a landslide began in a small village in South Wales and was heard around the world. A large mound of coal waste that had been neglectfully deposited by the National Coal Board (NCB) authorities on the valley sides for generations slide down the valley after days of torrential rain and covered the Pantglas Junior School and the surrounding houses.
144 people, 116 of them children, were killed.
In 2005 I was invited to contribute to an exhibition at the Newton Center for British-American Studies, Savannah, GA. The exhibition was entitled, “Contemporary Focus on Maps: Paper Worlds and Canvas Empires” and I decided to produce a map about the Aberfan Disaster. The map is an accurate map as well as an allegory. The map’s surface is peppered with pictographic representations of nuts, bolts, nails and washers that represent the corruption of the landscape by the coalmine industry. The contour lines contain the names, addresses and ages of the people who lost their lives that day.
ABERFAN INFORMATIONAL LINK
LINKS: http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/politics/aberfan/home2.htm /
