Our autumn Blaenau Ffestiniog Merched Chwarel exhibitions in y Llyfrgell Library and Llechwedd Slate Caverns were an opportunity to reflect a little more on how the herstory of quarrying and women reflect in the present. We’d found more stories in Blaenau of contemporary ‘quarry women’ than anywhere else in North Wales: including the first woman ever to work underground (albeit working as a tour guide rather than mining), stories of women ‘secretly’ going in to help their families make up their quotas, women working/striking in the strike in ‘85/’86 and some surprising connections between rocks and kitchens.
Although we had our exhibition in Llanberis already, our exhibition in Llyfrgell Blaenau felt the first one that was embedded within a quarrying town. Contemporary life in Blaenau ambled through the doors an live-streamed through the windows: the slate-roofed houses, the cliffs and quarries, zip wires, washing lines. Coming home. It felt good to be back. We were, to be honest, a bit surprised by just how well the exhibition worked in the space, and in the context of a library….
