ABERFAN EXHIBITION

I saw the 'Exhibition - Photography' advertised on the Internet.

“Aberfan -  Remembrances Of A Photojournalist. A Digital Exhibition

In the week following the Aberfan Disaster of 1966, the young American photojournalist I.C. (Chuck) Rapoport set out on a journey from New York City to capture the aftermath for LIFE magazine.

Chuck arrived in Aberfan on 29th October, after most of the world’s press had already left and spent six weeks living in and observing the community. His iconic photographs record life in Aberfan during that period and are a remarkable and unique record of ‘The Days After’. Chuck’s original selection of photographs for ‘The Days After’ was shown in a major exhibition at The National Library of Wales in 2005, with a book of the same title.

This new, digital exhibition includes the original images plus many additional, previously unseen images, together with Chuck’s narrated story of his emotive recollections – ‘Six Weeks in a Community of Survivors’.”

There are two incidents in my life in which I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. The Aberfan and Hillsborough disasters. With Aberfan, through the vicissitudes of my life there is a way in which I have always been connected to it. I knew Rapoport's work as I bought the 2005 book. I was unable to see the exhibition in Aberystwyth but here was an opportunity of viewing the photographs. The advert explained, “Continuous daily showings in the Keir Hardie Room (no showing on 21^st October). The Keir Hardie Room is occasionally used for functions. If travelling, please contact REDHOUSE first to ensure that the Keir Hardie Room will be open to the general public during the time of your planned visit.” I did not question why the exhibition was not on display on the actual date of the 50th anniversary but dutifully I rang the Redhouse to ensure no competing functions and after some confusion about what I was referring to from the person on the phone I was assured that the exhibition would be open when I planned to visit.

The morning was grey and drizzly when I took the train to Merthyr and as we travelled alongside the Taff the mist obscured the scenes of the valley and I only knew we were near Aberfan when we stopped at Merthyr Vale station. At Merthyr Tydfil, I walked through the rain to the Redhouse, the art centre hosting the exhibition, once the town hall, an elaborate Victorian building of red brick. The entrance hall, as one would expect of a 1890s municipal building, is terracotta tiled floor and bright glazed tiles below a dado rail of more tiles. Opposite the entrance is a double staircase leading to the first storey with a stained-glass window greeting the visitor. 

I looked around for some signs indicating where the exhibition was and my lost demeanour attracted a member of staff who had the ever-present identity card hanging from his neck.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I'm looking for the photographic exhibition about Aberfan.”

“Oh, it’s not really an exhibition.,” he said somewhat ruefully. “There are some photographs on the board down the corridor but not many. What it is, is a DVD that we have on a TV in the room. There is someone looking at it now. It started about 10 min ago.”

I was clearly a bit bewildered.

“You can go in now or wait until it finishes and I'll start it again you.”

He led me upstairs to a small room above the entrance. Over its door was inscribed ‘Keir Hardie’

The room was no bigger than a sitting room in an ordinary house and there in the dim light I saw one man seated watching a large screen TV resting on a chair. I peered in and saw familiar images appear on the screen. In this darkened space I felt that to remain I would be intruding into someone else's grief and so I backed out.

  

observing grief

  we all await 

  our turn

I told the identity card man that I wanted to watch it from the beginning and I would come back. He nodded and apologised for the monitor being on a chair, explaining that they had another presentation somewhere else in the building and their posh display monitor on its stand was needed for that.

“Is the programme on a loop?”

“It is supposed to be,” he said, “but it just doesn't work. I have to come in and put it on and off when people want to come and watch.”

“So everyone has to request a viewing.” I commented. Again he nodded. After a pause, I asked him to point out where the photographs were.  He directed me to a downstairs corridor. At the corridor’s end somewhat squashed up into the corner was a folding display stands with six uncaptioned but again familiar Aberfan images on them. As I looked at them, people passed me and as an observer I was clearly in the way.

 I walked around the rest of the building. There was a yoga class in a room with black curtains; in another room two women were putting up a display encouraging over 60s to have flu vaccination; in the central room people were congregating for a meeting, all clutching their cups of coffee. There was a busyness in the building. I whiled away some minutes looking at the displays outlining the building’s history and I took some photographs. Around the walls were painted images of heroes of Welsh Labour history - so the red in the name referred to the colour of the building’s politics and not just the bricks.

I returned to Kier Hardie. The room now had its light on, but quietness and stillness remained. I sat for a while and nothing happened. I went to find the identity card man and on discovering him I asked him to start the DVD. He led the way telling me that sometimes there was a problem with the laptop computer starting, but hopefully, “fingers crossed”,  it would work for me. I settled into a chair as he fiddled with the electronics. Eventually the programme started and as it did, three other people filed into the room and sitting in the remaining chairs. The man put the light off and we sat in the darkened room listening to the American photographer describe how he took his images of Aberfan in the weeks following the tip slide. The words he spoke appeared on screen and were interspersed between his photographs. It was a sombre presentation that invoked a personal sense of grief and compassion for those who had suffered loss; people I had never met but with whom I felt a connection. The film ended and the screen went blank. The four of us just stood up and walked out. We did not look at each other and we said nothing; we had shared something but it seemed impossible to open a conversation. We were like mourners leaving a church or chapel after a funeral except there was no one to shake your hand as you left and no one to approach cautiously and say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Afterwards in the café I sat quietly. I felt there was something just not respectful about the way the exhibition sat in the building and how I had watched it in small room on a telly balanced on a chair. There is always a poignancy in the way grief is positioned.

Returning on the train the weather had improved. As we approach Merthyr Vale I could see Aberfan across the valley and there stark amongst the natural contours and curves that shape the landscape and the higglety-piggletyness of the houses, stands the straight-line of the graves of the Memorial in the cemetery. It always stands out and it always will.