The Battle of Orgreave is part of The Artangel Collection, an initiative to bring outstanding film and video works, commissioned and produced by Artangel, to galleries and museums across the UK.
In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers went on strike. The dispute lasted for over a year and was the most bitterly fought since the general strike of 1926. On 18 June that year, the Orgreave coking plant was the site of one of the most violent confrontations, which culminated in a cavalry charge through the village.
Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave, staged seventeen years later, was a spectacular re-enactment of what happened that day. Orchestrated by Howard Giles, a historical re-enactment expert, it involved more than 800 participants, including former miners and policemen, reliving the events that they themselves took part in.
The Battle of Orgreave, filmed by Mike Figgis for Artangel and Channel 4, first aired on 20 October 2002. The film intercuts dramatic photographs from the clashes in 1984 with footage of the reenactment in 2001 and powerful testimonies to tease out the complexities of this bitter struggle.
Jeremy Deller (b. 1966 in London; lives and works in London) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University. Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 and represented Britain in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. He has been producing projects over the past two decades which have influenced the conventional map of contemporary art. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside conventional galleries.
Michael Figgis is an English film director, screenwriter, musician and composer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work on Leaving Las Vegas. Figgis was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers' online community Shooting People.
Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave, 2001. Production photograph: Parisa Taghizadeh. Commissioned by Artangel and Channel 4.
