The reclamation of large-scale sites with immediate community connections can be an opportunity for broad engagement. The AMD&ART project, completed in 2005, addressed the former site of the Vinton colliery, once the central focus of the community of Vintondale, defining the pace of life in the community. When the project started in 1995, the site had been minimally reclaimed by spreading waste coal across the landscape to make it flat and safe, but the reclamation also flattened the history of this community. Engaging the community through both the arts and the sciences, and doing so with close, almost daily, connections with as many in the community as possible, resulted in an award-winning project. This paper is the story of that project by its founder and director.
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