How We Made The Battle of Orgreave

Michael Morris, June 2002

Jeremy Deller proposed his project to Artangel via the Open competition that we launched with The Times and the A4E National Lottery scheme. For the first time Artangel opened its doors to proposals from artists, rather than identifying projects through invitation and discussion. Some 700 ideas came in and Rachel Whiteread, Brian Eno and Richard Cork joined James Lingwood and myself to select a pair of projects to a commission and produce.

Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave – a dangerously ambitious form of community play proposed via a short fax – was an immediate provocation. The project demanded to be realised even though it appeared impossible. It was probably this that drew us to it.

With Deller’s idea, it was clear that the decoy of a film would be necessary. This would not only provide a source of finance (there was no getting away from the fact that this would be a lengthy and expensive undertaking) but it would also lend the project a certain degree of credibility. Throughout the last ten years at Artangel, we’ve always found that people (especially the owners of extraordinary locations) often become much more interested and much more co-operative if film or television is involved.

Jan Younghusband at Channel 4 came on board with unwavering enthusiasm and Mike Figgis, equally gripped by the scale and ambition of Deller’s vision, agreed to direct the film which fast became much more than simply a means to an end.

We gave ourselves a year in which to build bridges of trust with the community of former miners in South Yorkshire and resolved to abandon the project at the first sign of hostility. They would become the cornerstone of the re-construction. It would be their memories and histories that would be re-staged.

Persuading Britain’s weekend Vikings to participate was less of a problem, having enlisted expert re-enactment tactican Howard Giles onto our team. The day itself unfolded with military precision but came across (particularly in the police cavalry charge down Highfield Lane) as though it was happening for real. Which in many ways it was – a piece of social history re-lived, not re-enacted.