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Le terril no 49, 3 de Béthune, Mazingarbe
But I think there is something more going on. The terrils are loved by the people who live near them: they climb them, fly kites on them, appreciate the wildflowers and butterflies, and enjoy having a high place from which to get a view. And they are also recognised by the thousands of people who pass through the area every day, often at high speed on the motorway or train. I always find myself scanning the horizon looking out for the first glimpse of a terril. A pair of particularly large twin terrils on the edge of Lens were humorously likened to the Egyptian pyramids and featured in a successful campaign to bring a new outpost of the Louvre to the town. The upheaval left behind after over three hundred years of mining has become the defining feature of the landscape – it is the landscape.
At the beginning of this text I asked what should be done with all the holes and heaps left behind once mining and quarrying industries have exhausted their resource – perhaps an overly simplistic question. A short exploration of the subject leads one to realise that each site is unique and has to be approached individually, but it is nonetheless the question that has led to the creation of numerous laws and regulations in countries across the world. Were a new seam of coal discovered in France today it would be inconceivable that its exploitation result in the creation of several hundred spoil heaps dotted across the landscape. The landscape of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais is interesting because there has been no program to return it to some previous (and now forgotten) state. A natural process of greening over has gradually got underway (some of the terrils are entirely wooded, others remain barren and stony, some have a green fuzz of pioneer vegetation). Overall, in its altered, man-made state the landscape has been left intact and in only a couple of decades after the end of the mining it has become highly valued and cherished. The UNESCO listing came about after a nine-year campaign, led by local politicians and heritage professionals, notably underpinned by real support from the local communities. The terrils and the other remains of the mining infrastructure have been incorporated into the identity and daily lives of the local population.Similar to how land artists transformed (rethinking) abandoned mines into site- specific artworks, here the remains of the mining industry and in particular the heaps of waste that it left behind, have also been rethought – as places of recreation, and as cultural artefacts that tell an important history.
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The terrils assert a landscape as something mutable. Maybe because the coal miners mined with a lighter touch they had fewer repercussions to fear? maybe there is a question of scale here as well.
The oil sands technology is so huge, so vast, people operate diggers the size of a large house, the pits and tailings ponds are the size of small towns, or large towns even - no, small provinces. There are tens of thousands of people working on these mining installations, living in camps of thousands - I’m not sure where the human scale is in all of this that will provide continuity with reclamation 100 years hence.
S W: it is a matter of scale: the mining
technology that created something the size of terrils has much to do with men, horses, trains and the limits of 19th-mid 20th century construction. Something about that human scale provides continuity with the appropriation as parks and hills for people today.
1 Morris, Robert, ‘Notes on Art as/and Land Reclamation’, October , Spring 1980 2 Flam, Jack (ed), Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings , University of California Press 1996 3 Morris, 1980
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