0:00:03 > 0:00:06Modern Britain was forged in the Industrial Revolution.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10It was the furnaces, the factories,
0:00:10 > 0:00:11the quarries and the pits
0:00:11 > 0:00:13that made us who we are.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22Industry shaped our nation's identity and its destiny.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31So why is it that when asked to paint a picture of Britain,
0:00:31 > 0:00:34we seem to see ourselves in a very different light?
0:00:35 > 0:00:37In a recent poll,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41the nation's favoured painting by a British artist was unveiled.
0:00:41 > 0:00:42And what do you think we chose?
0:00:46 > 0:00:49The Hay Wain by John Constable.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Painted in 1821,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55The Hay Wain depicts an idyllic view
0:00:55 > 0:00:57of Flatford Mill on the River Stour.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00Picture postcard Britain.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05But is this still the image we should be painting of ourselves?
0:01:05 > 0:01:06I mean, come on, Britain!
0:01:09 > 0:01:10Let's have a bit of fun.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13Even in Constable's day,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17this painting was already an outdated and idealized vision.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23A Britain viewed through the lens of the picturesque.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Yet this green and pleasant land, free from chimneys,
0:01:31 > 0:01:33factories and urban grime,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37remains cryogenically preserved in our imaginations.
0:01:42 > 0:01:43That's better already.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50I should know. As an artist myself,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53I've painted many such landscapes,
0:01:53 > 0:01:55editing what I see in order to
0:01:55 > 0:01:58satisfy a national appetite for copses,
0:01:58 > 0:02:02hedgerows and hot-buttered self-delusion.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04In art, as in our mind's eye,
0:02:04 > 0:02:08it seems that the good life is never smeared in diesel,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12but is spent innocently frolicking around in haystacks.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15We are addicted to this pastoral idyll.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19It's so soothing, so sweet and so desperately dull.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27Art matters because it reflects and shapes how we see ourselves.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31There is another way of telling our national story which has been hidden
0:02:31 > 0:02:34from view and offers us the possibility
0:02:34 > 0:02:36of seeing ourselves afresh.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40There have always been rogue artists,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44seduced by the dark, satanic mills of industrial Britain.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48And the images they created were
0:02:48 > 0:02:52exhilarating, terrifying, poignant,
0:02:52 > 0:02:54anything but picturesque.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59Too much of a good thing clogs the arteries of your imagination.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02I want to see the world through their eyes.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04I want to explore and capture
0:03:04 > 0:03:08the hidden industrial landscapes of today's working Britain,
0:03:08 > 0:03:12those places that you might instinctively avoid or ignore.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15There's beauty to be found there.
0:03:15 > 0:03:16There's art to be found there.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31Port Talbot, Wales.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33The largest steelworks in Britain.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Up to a staggering five million tonnes of steel
0:03:38 > 0:03:40are produced here each year.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Ironworks and forges were the very
0:03:49 > 0:03:52backbone of the Industrial Revolution,
0:03:52 > 0:03:56and they remain, today, explosive and visceral places.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03And yet, the paintings that are most often associated
0:04:03 > 0:04:05with our industrial landscape...
0:04:05 > 0:04:08I mean, they just tend to be so grim.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17LS Lowry is widely accepted as having painted
0:04:17 > 0:04:21the definitive portrait of industrial Britain,
0:04:21 > 0:04:26a weary world of textile mills and soul-crushing routine.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29# He painted Salford's smoky tops
0:04:29 > 0:04:32# On cardboard boxes from the shops
0:04:32 > 0:04:36# And parts of Ancoats where I used to play. #
0:04:36 > 0:04:37Oh, give it a rest!
0:04:39 > 0:04:43Maybe I am guilty of romanticizing a life I've never had to live,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47but Lowry's picture of working Britain simply depresses me,
0:04:47 > 0:04:48and I reject the idea that
0:04:48 > 0:04:52depictions of industry have always got to feature
0:04:52 > 0:04:53a palette of sludgy colours
0:04:53 > 0:04:56and a cast of miserable-looking matchstick men.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08To my mind, there's a much earlier art world outsider...
0:05:10 > 0:05:13..whose vision of industry was far more compelling.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21This is An Iron Forge,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25painted in 1772 by Joseph Wright of Derby.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29And he was the first in a rogue band of artists who,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32at moments of upheaval and technological revolution,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35placed working Britain firmly in the limelight.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48And there was nothing dull or dingy about Joseph Wright's vision.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55One inspired by an unlikely source.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01After witnessing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06he had become obsessed with the possibility of dramatic lighting.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08And it became his signature style,
0:06:08 > 0:06:11one that was eminently suited to his subject.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17And you can see in this painting
0:06:17 > 0:06:21how he uses that technique to transform a humble forge
0:06:21 > 0:06:23into something much more iconic.
0:06:35 > 0:06:37This is a modern nativity scene,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40where the burst of one molten ingot
0:06:40 > 0:06:44seems to promise a golden industrial future for all.
0:06:59 > 0:07:05The fury of white heat and molten metal is still an enthralling sight.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11So why are these places and the people that work here
0:07:11 > 0:07:15largely ignored in art history's picture of Britain?
0:07:26 > 0:07:30As giant ironworks emerged in the 19th century,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33vast crowds came to gape and wonder.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37But people's reactions varied.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42Not everybody was an automatic convert to the church of industry.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45Anxiety about the power and the impact of these places
0:07:45 > 0:07:47was there from the start.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51When the artist John Martin travelled across the Black Country,
0:07:51 > 0:07:54he described a landscape in which the glowing furnaces,
0:07:54 > 0:07:58the red blaze of light and the liquid fire
0:07:58 > 0:08:01were truly sublime and awful.
0:08:05 > 0:08:11The Great Day Of His Wrath, Martin's painting of a biblical apocalypse,
0:08:11 > 0:08:15was inspired by the Black Country's blazing industrial landscape.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23It's an image that took no prisoners.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34And yet, this industrial habitat was fast becoming the norm.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39By 1850, more people in Britain
0:08:39 > 0:08:42lived in cities than in the countryside.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46And when they looked out of their window,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49they didn't see Constable's utopian Hay Wain,
0:08:49 > 0:08:51they saw something resembling this.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56Welcome to Dudley.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58This is 19th-century Britain,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01painted by Constable's greatest rival
0:09:01 > 0:09:06and the nation's other favourite landscape painter, JMW Turner.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09But unlike Constable, Turner had a real passion for industry.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12He rejoiced in the noise, the speed,
0:09:12 > 0:09:16the clattering cacophony of this great new world.
0:09:16 > 0:09:17And for Turner,
0:09:17 > 0:09:18the optical distortion
0:09:18 > 0:09:23he loved best in modern Britain, it was the flames, the steam,
0:09:23 > 0:09:27the smoke that rolled across the manufacturing landscape.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31And to experience that particular kind of visual magic,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33he didn't need to go to Venice or Rome,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36he just needed to come here to Dudley.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42Through a prism of particulates,
0:09:42 > 0:09:43coal dust and drizzle,
0:09:43 > 0:09:45the Black Country takes on a palette
0:09:45 > 0:09:47of entirely new colours.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54For me, this is as much the picture of Britain
0:09:54 > 0:09:57we fought wars to defend as The Hay Wain.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04The art of industry, however, can obscure some harsh realities.
0:10:06 > 0:10:07In 1840,
0:10:07 > 0:10:12the life expectancy of anyone born here in Dudley
0:10:12 > 0:10:16was just over 18 years of age. 18.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21And anyone who was employed in the town's workshops and smithies
0:10:21 > 0:10:23was liable to experience working conditions
0:10:23 > 0:10:25that were pretty barbarous.
0:10:25 > 0:10:27But nonetheless, I don't get the impression
0:10:27 > 0:10:30that when Turner was creating this painting
0:10:30 > 0:10:32he was sort of frowning with disapproval,
0:10:32 > 0:10:34this isn't a moral treatise on
0:10:34 > 0:10:37the negative impact of industry on society.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Instead it's a kind of romantic celebration
0:10:40 > 0:10:43of the industrial sublime,
0:10:43 > 0:10:47of the ways in which man has been able to sculpt and shape
0:10:47 > 0:10:49and harness the elements,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52to transform the landscape of England
0:10:52 > 0:10:54in ways that even nature hadn't imagined.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I want to get a better sense of the awe that Turner felt.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16And throughout our green and pleasant land,
0:11:16 > 0:11:17surprises lie in wait.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36This is Penrhyn Slate Quarry in Wales.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39And at over a mile long and 370 metres deep,
0:11:39 > 0:11:42it used to be the largest slate quarry in the world.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45It's a man-made Grand Canyon,
0:11:45 > 0:11:49where the inherent power and drama of the landscape here in Wales
0:11:49 > 0:11:51has been maxed out by human intervention.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59It reminds me of the scree-covered slopes in the Scottish Highlands,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01or America's Rocky Mountains.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04Places I often visit to paint.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16But this environment has those characteristics in spades.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19Humanity has made its mark here.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21It's carved out the whole mountain,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24and it has created something that is apocalyptic.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28It's shocking, but it is shockingly beautiful.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36For centuries, these slopes were quarried by hand,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39with the slate produced shipped all over the world.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Today, men and their machines rule the earth.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52It's some spectacle.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12I'm not kidding when I say I find these places beautiful,
0:13:12 > 0:13:16because as an artist, everywhere that I look here
0:13:16 > 0:13:18are intriguing details.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21I mean, it's there in the tyre prints that you get in the mud,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23the clay mud of the slate quarry.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25It's there in the weird,
0:13:25 > 0:13:30creamy turquoise water of a pool in the middle of this quarry.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33I mean, if it's picturesque you're looking for, it's all here.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38And if you open your eyes, you see not grey, you see silver, blue,
0:13:38 > 0:13:41you see turquoise and ochres.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44This is a landscape that's actually full of colour.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47You don't just have to be in a meadow
0:13:47 > 0:13:49to paint a delightful landscape.
0:13:49 > 0:13:51You can be in a place that might
0:13:51 > 0:13:54strike some as desolate, and find great treasures.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01I'm not the first outsider to find this place captivating.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08A young Princess Victoria, visiting in 1832, wrote...
0:14:08 > 0:14:14It was very curious to see the men split the slate, and others cut it.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17While others hung, suspended by ropes,
0:14:17 > 0:14:21others again drove wedges into a piece of rock.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24And in that manner, would split off a block.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37Henry Hawkins' painting is a rich slice of Victoriana.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40It evokes in minute detail,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42but on a biblical scale,
0:14:42 > 0:14:44the kind of drama of a working quarry.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46I mean, look at these guys there.
0:14:46 > 0:14:51They are blasting, crow-barring, precariously dangling off the rocks.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54But for the families that, over generations,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58actually worked specific segments of this quarry,
0:14:58 > 0:15:00life was pretty gruelling.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04I mean, the manual stamina that was required to carve out this landscape
0:15:04 > 0:15:06was an act of heroism.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08But surviving here?
0:15:08 > 0:15:11That was going to require another kind of bravery altogether.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22Art shouldn't just comfort us,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26it should challenge us to consider what's important in life and how we
0:15:26 > 0:15:28choose to see the world.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35A clear-eyed view of hard work and difficult circumstances
0:15:35 > 0:15:38has always been compelling.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50In the early 1860s,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52an English photographer named William Clayton
0:15:52 > 0:15:55arrived in the small Welsh town of Tredegar.
0:15:59 > 0:16:00He set up a studio,
0:16:00 > 0:16:05and instead of producing starchy portraits of middle-class families,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08he began to photograph the town's working community.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22Tredegar was a crucible of the Industrial Revolution,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26but Clayton directed his lens not at the mill owners and managers,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30but the women who laboured in the local ironworks and mines.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34And the extraordinary thing is that these images were not intended on
0:16:34 > 0:16:36being celebratory.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38They were used as part of a campaign
0:16:38 > 0:16:42that sought to ban these people from working.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50The local newspaper claimed
0:16:50 > 0:16:56that for these women to work made them unfit to be wives or mothers.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07Each person is photographed in their work clothes.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09They're shown clutching pickaxes,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12holding on to teapots and kettles
0:17:12 > 0:17:15and buckets, holding on to each other.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19And in some cases,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22their dirty garments are ornamented so poignantly
0:17:22 > 0:17:25with little beads and headdresses.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32When you stare into the eyes of these dignified working women,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36they defiantly hold your gaze across the centuries.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43You know, art doesn't have to be pretty.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47It's there to enlighten us about our history,
0:17:47 > 0:17:48and these images do that.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52They introduce us to our industrial ancestors,
0:17:52 > 0:17:58the very people we could have been but for a twist of historical fate.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01They really are some of the most powerful images, I think,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04in the history of photography.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06And to some extent, I believe that they have been neglected,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09rather like the women themselves
0:18:09 > 0:18:11during their working lives.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24The importance of the human story
0:18:24 > 0:18:27to our industrial landscape should never be ignored.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31Growing up here in Glasgow,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34I was acutely aware of the struggle to keep
0:18:34 > 0:18:36the city's celebrated shipyards alive.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46I had no family association with the yards,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49but in our household it was simply accepted
0:18:49 > 0:18:53that shipbuilding was a vital part of the city's history,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56and by association our shared heritage.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58It was just all part of growing up Glasgow.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08Not so long ago, this river, the Clyde,
0:19:08 > 0:19:11was where a fifth of the world's ships were built.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16It was a vast theatre of industrial pandemonium.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24A working environment where people were proud to play their part.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39When I was first granted access to paint and sketch here in the last
0:19:39 > 0:19:42surviving shipyard on the upper Clyde,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46it was the scale of human endeavour and industry that blew me away.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57I spend most of my life alone in a studio,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59so coming to a shipyard where
0:19:59 > 0:20:04the spectacle of activity and industry is so relentless
0:20:04 > 0:20:06only sharpens the old drawing senses.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Cos you don't have long to capture the activity here.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11It's not like The Hay Wain.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13Nothing's standing still.
0:20:13 > 0:20:15And if you turn your back on a subject,
0:20:15 > 0:20:17you might turn round again to find it completely altered.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26You never see anything like this on civvy street.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28BUZZING
0:20:28 > 0:20:29WHIRRING
0:20:32 > 0:20:33BANGING
0:20:34 > 0:20:36I've been coming here for years,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39but I still get goose bumps every time.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42And I think that what I find particularly exciting
0:20:42 > 0:20:44about this kind of location
0:20:44 > 0:20:48is the contrast between the epic and the intimate,
0:20:48 > 0:20:52the brutal and the beautiful.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56This is a cathedral-sized project,
0:20:56 > 0:20:58where people are busy everywhere in
0:20:58 > 0:21:01tiny little alcoves and chapel-like spaces.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05They're all coming together to make it happen,
0:21:05 > 0:21:10and you catch glimpses of them illuminated by ethereal lights,
0:21:10 > 0:21:12or sparks and shadows.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16It's brilliant. And the deep bass boom of construction
0:21:16 > 0:21:19gets inside you like you're in an industrial nightclub.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21REPEATED METALLIC BANGING
0:21:34 > 0:21:36I'm always aware there's a danger of
0:21:36 > 0:21:40painting over the tough realities of these environments.
0:21:42 > 0:21:43But in the shipyards,
0:21:43 > 0:21:45I frequently draw people who have
0:21:45 > 0:21:48spent their whole working lives here,
0:21:48 > 0:21:53and who remain captivated by the sublime power of industry.
0:21:55 > 0:21:56The work that you do,
0:21:56 > 0:21:59do you just kind of see it as sort of metal-bashing,
0:21:59 > 0:22:01sticking bits together,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04or is there a craft involved here that people don't notice?
0:22:04 > 0:22:08Lachlan, you've no idea how that expression really does my nut in -
0:22:08 > 0:22:10metal-bashing. You don't...
0:22:10 > 0:22:14These boats are handmade, like a suit.
0:22:14 > 0:22:19A handmade product made by hundreds of guys with expertise.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22They are not bashed, they are formed.
0:22:22 > 0:22:24And there's a lot of,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27an awful lot of pride in these boats for the guys.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29People think, "Och, it's a shipyard, it's just..."
0:22:29 > 0:22:30You were saying metal-bashing,
0:22:30 > 0:22:33but just so much pride in building these boats
0:22:33 > 0:22:35and putting them together.
0:22:37 > 0:22:38We're the hammer men.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43We're the most ancient trade outside of potters and joiners.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46I mean, we took the raw earth, turned it into metal,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50and turned metal into things and things into machines.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52I mean, we're pretty primal.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54That's how I think about it anyway.
0:22:55 > 0:23:00There was an old saying, when you went home a wee bit dirty,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04you'd say, "Oh, your mother will give you an extra potato
0:23:04 > 0:23:05"from her plate tonight,"
0:23:05 > 0:23:08cos you'd deserved it and you've done a bit of work.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12Would you feel this strongly if you were making washing machines?
0:23:12 > 0:23:16- Probably not.- Why should a ship engender so much more feeling?
0:23:16 > 0:23:19Cos a ship is alive, Lachlan.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21That's why you call her "she".
0:23:21 > 0:23:23Right, she's alive. She takes on a life.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27As soon as she hits that water, just a wee bit before,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30you begin to feel her almost springing into life.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33Now, when she hits the water, you can see that she's alive.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Do you think this place is beautiful?
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Yes, but it's a pretty stark beauty, right?
0:23:42 > 0:23:44It's not warm.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46You don't have nice dreams about it.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49It's a kind of place that takes your breath away.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03Pride in the making of things,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06and the pride artists take in capturing this work
0:24:06 > 0:24:08are two sides of the same coin.
0:24:10 > 0:24:11Engineering and beauty,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15science and art are not really strangers to one another.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19And nowhere is this made clearer
0:24:19 > 0:24:21than in the drawings of Muirhead Bone.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29Bone's meticulous renderings of shipbuilding
0:24:29 > 0:24:32fused science and art together on the page.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46Muirhead Bone was born just across the river in Partick,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49and he trained originally as an architect
0:24:49 > 0:24:53before being appointed Britain's first-ever official war artist.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57But in 1917, exactly 100 years ago,
0:24:57 > 0:24:58he returned here to the Clyde to
0:24:58 > 0:25:02document the front line of naval construction.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05Like me, today, he was 40 years old.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07And like me, he was absolutely in awe of
0:25:07 > 0:25:10the energy and activity of a working shipyard,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14so much so that he resorted to strapping a sketchbook to his arm
0:25:14 > 0:25:15so that he could run around
0:25:15 > 0:25:18capturing all the scenes as quickly as possible.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30Bone studied his subject with an architect's eye.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33No amount of intricate scaffolding could faze him.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37Every angle, every detail counted.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47Now, I can vouch for how mentally exhausting
0:25:47 > 0:25:50scrutinising and capturing such subjects can be,
0:25:50 > 0:25:52and I can also vouch for how effective
0:25:52 > 0:25:56the solutions that Muirhead Bone exploited were,
0:25:56 > 0:25:59because I use the very same carbon pencils that he did.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01I find that lead pencils snap too often
0:26:01 > 0:26:03and they tend to smudge in the rain.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07But with carbon, you're always guaranteed a confident,
0:26:07 > 0:26:12dark and velvety line, come rain or freezing cold,
0:26:12 > 0:26:14weather conditions that are not uncommon
0:26:14 > 0:26:16here on the Costa del Clyde.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28The solutions to certain creative problems can be timeless,
0:26:28 > 0:26:30but technology moves fast.
0:26:30 > 0:26:35Here in Govan, 175 years of shipbuilding tradition
0:26:35 > 0:26:36is set to continue,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40because the people that work here are keeping pace.
0:27:03 > 0:27:08The early 20th century was a brave new world of mechanization,
0:27:08 > 0:27:13where art, science and the promise of an engineered utopian future
0:27:13 > 0:27:15were set on a collision course.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21The blades of this vast wooden propeller
0:27:21 > 0:27:25once revolved at speeds of up to 120mph.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32Here in the wind tunnels of Farnborough,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36aviation designs at the cutting edge of British technology
0:27:36 > 0:27:38were once put through their paces.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50I mean, this is Disneyland for grown-ups.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53The scale is absolutely awesome,
0:27:53 > 0:27:58but what I find most powerful is the latent sense of accelerating energy
0:27:58 > 0:28:02that remains in this dormant place.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06These are genuinely the propellers of history.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08But to me, they still look like the future.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30And when artists first encountered the new, dynamic shapes of aviation
0:28:30 > 0:28:33technology for example, well,
0:28:33 > 0:28:35no wonder they felt they needed
0:28:35 > 0:28:38a new, modern art for a new, modern world.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47Edward Wadsworth belonged to a group of artists
0:28:47 > 0:28:50that called themselves the Vorticists.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55These young punks celebrated the promise of the machine age
0:28:55 > 0:28:58with a riot of geometry and abstraction.
0:29:05 > 0:29:07On the eve of World War I,
0:29:07 > 0:29:09the Vorticists published their own magazine,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13and it was rather portentously entitled Blast.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16In it, they shredded the cosy conservatism of English art.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21They condemned the picturesquely patriotic, and celebrated instead,
0:29:21 > 0:29:25in their own words, the machines, trains and steam ships,
0:29:25 > 0:29:29all that distinguishes, externally, our time and that came far more from
0:29:29 > 0:29:32here than anywhere else.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34And the images that accompanied those words
0:29:34 > 0:29:36were equally spiky and unsettling.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39None of them was ever going to be crowned
0:29:39 > 0:29:41the nation's favourite picture.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45I mean, this was the Sex Pistols for the Art Nouveau generation.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52The Vorticists provoked a genuine moment of artistic innovation.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58A chance for our national art history's story
0:29:58 > 0:30:01to take a more progressive and dramatic turn.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07So why, every time industry forces its way into the art gallery,
0:30:07 > 0:30:09does its influence splutter to a halt?
0:30:13 > 0:30:15Wadsworth called this image War Engine,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19and it was printed in the second edition of Blast in 1915,
0:30:19 > 0:30:21after the war had already begun.
0:30:21 > 0:30:25And it actually feels like being inside the magazine of a gun,
0:30:25 > 0:30:30inserted into the greased intestines of a killing machine.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34I mean, the lines seem to sweep across the page, they swing,
0:30:34 > 0:30:35lock and repeat,
0:30:35 > 0:30:39almost like being hypnotised by the mechanical process.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41I find it genuinely terrifying,
0:30:41 > 0:30:44and it betrays a growing anxiety
0:30:44 > 0:30:47about the mechanised cogs of industry and war.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54"Long live the vortex", declared Blast's first edition.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58But within a month, that very vortex would begin to consume hundreds of
0:30:58 > 0:31:01thousands of equally idealistic young men,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04scythed to the ground by the war machines.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11How could you make art any longer out of this?
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Farnborough's graveyard of engineering monsters
0:31:26 > 0:31:28is haunting and unsettling,
0:31:28 > 0:31:30but also undeniably sculptural.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35And yet the link between machinery and violence
0:31:35 > 0:31:39has often stifled our appreciation for the art of industry.
0:31:42 > 0:31:46Except when our very survival has depended on it.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53I've been told 35 degrees.
0:31:53 > 0:31:55It's going to be bloody boiling.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00The outbreak of the Second World War placed industry
0:32:00 > 0:32:04firmly in the crosshairs of a new generation of artists.
0:32:06 > 0:32:07Unlike the Vorticists,
0:32:07 > 0:32:13Graham Sutherland chose to give industry a human face, and to do so,
0:32:13 > 0:32:14he descended underground.
0:32:20 > 0:32:21RUMBLING
0:32:26 > 0:32:29There is no industry more deeply woven
0:32:29 > 0:32:33into the mythology of working Britain than mining.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36And there is surely no environment more alien to the creation of art,
0:32:36 > 0:32:40but, in spite of my kind of claustrophobia,
0:32:40 > 0:32:42I've always wanted to journey to the centre of the earth.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52Here at Boulby in North Yorkshire,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55I'm now over a kilometre underground,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58in the UK's deepest working mine.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04A labyrinth of tunnels extend 10km out under the North Sea.
0:33:08 > 0:33:09There's a whole world down here,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12it's a kind of spooky subterranean landscape
0:33:12 > 0:33:16that was formed by an ancient and now long-vanished sea,
0:33:16 > 0:33:18about 230 million years ago.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24The walls are closing in, they are undulating,
0:33:24 > 0:33:26they're not even and symmetrical.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29It's like being in sort of a goblin's grotto.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36At the business end of things, they are mining for potash,
0:33:36 > 0:33:39a pink-hued mineral used as fertiliser.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47You know, your ability to create images
0:33:47 > 0:33:50is really enhanced by the thrill,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53the energy of a new sort of industrial workplace.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55Everything here is brand-new to me,
0:33:55 > 0:33:58and this kind of dinosaur of a machine,
0:33:58 > 0:34:01this beast that is churning towards me is absolutely terrifying.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05And it's energising the marks that I'm making, but weirdly,
0:34:05 > 0:34:08although I find this thing really intimidating,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11I'm turning my image into something really colourful,
0:34:11 > 0:34:13because I'd never have expected that down here
0:34:13 > 0:34:16there's a wonderland of pinks, golds and oranges.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19And that's what I'm putting into the drawing
0:34:19 > 0:34:22of this great, earth-chewing beast.
0:34:25 > 0:34:28The sounds, the noise, the energy, well, it's inspiring.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38The artist whose footsteps I'm following in
0:34:38 > 0:34:40was one of Britain's most innovative painters.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46Graham Sutherland was known for his brooding abstract renderings of
0:34:46 > 0:34:48England's landscape.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55But with the dawn of World War II,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58he was appointed an official war artist
0:34:58 > 0:35:01and sent to document the work at Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall.
0:35:01 > 0:35:06Now, Geevor Tin Mine has long since closed,
0:35:06 > 0:35:10much like every other mine in the country, and Graham Sutherland,
0:35:10 > 0:35:14rather like myself, was absolutely terrified of the proposition of
0:35:14 > 0:35:16descending into the mine.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20On his first trip down he recorded how his legs trembled,
0:35:20 > 0:35:25the pitch dark and vertiginous ladders almost causing him to faint.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30He even wrote in a letter, "The sense of remoteness was tangible,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32"the distances seemed endless."
0:35:35 > 0:35:37To Sutherland's surprise,
0:35:37 > 0:35:39he found himself deeply moved by
0:35:39 > 0:35:41the underground world that he discovered.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Experiences were intensified,
0:35:47 > 0:35:49his senses heightened,
0:35:49 > 0:35:54and here in this magical place, I can begin to understand why.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06In the dark tunnels of the mine,
0:36:06 > 0:36:09Sutherland's imagination was transported.
0:36:11 > 0:36:15One of my favourite works from this period is Emerging Miner.
0:36:19 > 0:36:21Emerging Miner really does evoke
0:36:21 > 0:36:24that oppressive feeling of confinement that you get
0:36:24 > 0:36:26right down here in the mine.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30But it also disorientates and confuses your sense of direction.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34It's unclear whether this figure is actually climbing a vertical ladder
0:36:34 > 0:36:39towards us, or moving along an elevated horizontal tunnel.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42And there's no doubt there's a real air of magic to this scene too.
0:36:42 > 0:36:43The golden glow, for example,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45that surrounds the miner,
0:36:45 > 0:36:47begins to imply that what he's digging is
0:36:47 > 0:36:50actually a lot rarer than tin.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53And there's even a kind of fleshy pink hue to the stone here,
0:36:53 > 0:36:57which I think gives the impression he is almost in something organic,
0:36:57 > 0:36:59an artery perhaps, at the very heart of the earth.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03It's a very poignant picture, I think,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07because this lonely miner evokes the battles that are actually happening
0:37:07 > 0:37:10at this point above ground in World War II.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14And yet he is engaged in his own conflict against the darkness,
0:37:14 > 0:37:15against the claustrophobia,
0:37:15 > 0:37:18against the elements that surround him.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27In Geevor Tin Mine, Graham Sutherland,
0:37:27 > 0:37:29artist of the British landscape,
0:37:29 > 0:37:32had discovered an even more potent distillation
0:37:32 > 0:37:33of the nation's identity.
0:37:34 > 0:37:35Its people.
0:37:37 > 0:37:42And today, I think his work conduces a certain nostalgia for a rapidly
0:37:42 > 0:37:43vanishing way of life.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53So, Robin and Pete, what do you make of it when you look at this drawing?
0:37:53 > 0:37:57- Have you seen it before?- I haven't seen it, no.- No, I haven't seen it.
0:37:57 > 0:37:58It looks good.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03Very good. You can see where his light is.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06You can see where his light is, you can see the blackness behind him.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09The tunnel section is there, which is what we see, obviously.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11Exactly the same that way.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14When we switch our lights off...
0:38:14 > 0:38:16- You just can't see anything. - That terrifies me.
0:38:16 > 0:38:19I mean, I thought if I'd fallen off that van today,
0:38:19 > 0:38:21you'd never have found me again.
0:38:21 > 0:38:23That's why we keep our lights on.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27I get a sense that here, almost a kilometre down under the sea,
0:38:27 > 0:38:29you guys really have to rely upon each other.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31- That's what we do. - That's part of it.
0:38:31 > 0:38:33Everybody relies on everybody.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35- So you've got the trust. - The trust, yes.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37We're like a band of brothers.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39That sounds like a bit of a stereotype,
0:38:39 > 0:38:42and to people who don't come to these places, they might think,
0:38:42 > 0:38:44"Oh, it's just romanticism."
0:38:44 > 0:38:47- But it's true. - It's true, definitely true.
0:38:47 > 0:38:48It's an alien environment.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51It's an environment most people never see.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53And do you ever think of this environment
0:38:53 > 0:38:55as the kind of ancient place it is?
0:38:55 > 0:38:58Because every step you take further into the wall,
0:38:58 > 0:39:00you're like burrowing in millions of years.
0:39:00 > 0:39:02Does that come into your thinking?
0:39:02 > 0:39:03Yes, at certain times, yes.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07You're seeing a face line there that no human eyes have seen before,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10apart from yours when you cut it.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13So, you know, there is something there that is unique.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16- Don't you miss the sunshine? - Yes.- Yes.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30When, at the end of World War II,
0:39:30 > 0:39:34the miners of Geevor emerged blinking into the light,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37they found an exhausted nation.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41But life had to be rebuilt, the people motivated.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45And crucial to this was the promise of industry.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00The future looked like this once.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03A strange geometric kingdom.
0:40:06 > 0:40:11When Fawley Oil Refinery on England's southern coast
0:40:11 > 0:40:12opened in 1951,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15it represented the optimistic spirit
0:40:15 > 0:40:18of a post-war industrial boom.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20The largest oil refinery in Europe.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22That's the title given to the gleaming metal city
0:40:22 > 0:40:27that has sprung up on the edge of the New Forest at Fawley.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31The writer HE Bates described it as,
0:40:31 > 0:40:34"A city of spires and spheres and
0:40:34 > 0:40:39"ovoids and towers and tubes of swanlike grease, endlessly curving."
0:40:45 > 0:40:48Fawley represented a vision of Britain
0:40:48 > 0:40:50that was fit for the Jetsons,
0:40:50 > 0:40:52a country that was throttling towards
0:40:52 > 0:40:55the outer reaches of scientific possibility.
0:41:01 > 0:41:02You know, 70 years on,
0:41:02 > 0:41:06and we really should have inhabited those cities in the sky.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17Tomorrow's world was something to have faith in, a cult of confidence,
0:41:17 > 0:41:19and one of its high priests was
0:41:19 > 0:41:22a photographer called Maurice Broomfield.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24During the 1950s and '60s,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27he captured the golden age of British industry.
0:41:29 > 0:41:33Through his lens the mundane routines of the factory floor
0:41:33 > 0:41:35became truly cinematic.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50For many years Maurice Broomfield lived here
0:41:50 > 0:41:52in this 19th-century flour mill.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56And his son Nick, the renowned documentary maker,
0:41:56 > 0:41:58is custodian of his father's estate.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05Wonderful. She's great.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Your first reaction to so many of these photographs is,
0:42:08 > 0:42:10"What the hell is actually going on?"
0:42:10 > 0:42:12It's so peculiar.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15He would spend nearly all day setting the picture up,
0:42:15 > 0:42:17maybe one or two pictures.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20And then he would just take the picture.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23And this charming lady in that photograph,
0:42:23 > 0:42:25is this someone he would have looked for particularly?
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Was he careful to find elegant models sometimes?
0:42:28 > 0:42:32Yes, I think he would have scoured the factory
0:42:32 > 0:42:34until he found someone he thought looked rather nice.
0:42:34 > 0:42:36That he wanted to look at in his picture.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39She might have a completely different job
0:42:39 > 0:42:40somewhere else in the factory,
0:42:40 > 0:42:42and he would put her there and stylise her.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45I'm sure the lipstick is something he arranged.
0:42:45 > 0:42:49But he probably painted that wall and, you know...
0:42:49 > 0:42:51- That much of an intervention? - Oh, yes.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55So he was kind of romanticising the work,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00and also making an image of something that is a powerful image.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03I think that was what he was trying to do.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07My father was always a bit of an adventurer.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12He loved taking pictures from dangerous places,
0:43:12 > 0:43:16so if there was a ladder or something to climb up
0:43:16 > 0:43:18or this incredibly hot blast furnace,
0:43:18 > 0:43:20you could be sure that's where he would be.
0:43:23 > 0:43:28As a child, Nick accompanied his father on factory visits.
0:43:29 > 0:43:33I remember, we went to a lead works, where they would fold the lead.
0:43:33 > 0:43:35You know, they would flatten it, fold it.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38And then when they were pushing it again,
0:43:38 > 0:43:40this piece of lead the size of a fist
0:43:40 > 0:43:42would just fly across the factory floor.
0:43:42 > 0:43:46And everyone would go sort of like that, there was no safety,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49it was like kind of Dante's Inferno.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52And people in the lead works looked green, I remember that.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54People had green faces.
0:43:54 > 0:43:59So this was like a world completely outside my experience.
0:43:59 > 0:44:00Something that he had grown up with.
0:44:00 > 0:44:06Because he left school at 15, worked making copper pipes for Rolls-Royce.
0:44:06 > 0:44:08So he had experienced industry at first-hand?
0:44:08 > 0:44:12Oh, yeah, that's how he started, that's how he knew industry,
0:44:12 > 0:44:14that's how he understood the people.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17He would establish a real relationship with them,
0:44:17 > 0:44:21and then people would put up with
0:44:21 > 0:44:25being bent over double like that for probably a couple of hours.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27You know, being like this.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32And look at this perfectly clean uniform, but also
0:44:32 > 0:44:36just at the right position.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38Everything is kind of perfect about it.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42There was one he did of a stocking, have you seen that one?
0:44:42 > 0:44:45- It's brilliant.- It's quite sort of erotic. A picture of a leg.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47And he's very carefully lit it so that
0:44:47 > 0:44:50it's just the leg and the guy looking at it.
0:44:50 > 0:44:52He was sort of amusing himself too.
0:44:54 > 0:44:55But it was important to him to present
0:44:55 > 0:44:59industry in a kind of theatrical light, because these seem pretty...
0:44:59 > 0:45:00I mean, these seem cinematic.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02You know, he studied art.
0:45:02 > 0:45:04I think his first love was painting.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06Who was the artist, somebody Wright?
0:45:06 > 0:45:07Joseph Wright.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09- Joseph Wright.- Of Derby.
0:45:09 > 0:45:10Who was also from Derby.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12So when he studied at night school,
0:45:12 > 0:45:15it was Joseph Wright who was the sort of guiding inspiration,
0:45:15 > 0:45:18who played a lot with light, very dramatic light.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21So the cinematic quality is almost coming out of 18th-century painting?
0:45:21 > 0:45:23It is, yes.
0:45:25 > 0:45:27A different Broomfield image
0:45:27 > 0:45:30appeared in the Financial Times every week.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33And he was photographer of choice for industrial corporate clients.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Yet his work retained a uniquely personal vision.
0:45:40 > 0:45:45I think it was almost like a Soviet thing of like, men, and industry,
0:45:45 > 0:45:47you know, of progress, "This is progress."
0:45:47 > 0:45:50And of course it was progress in a way.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53I mean, I think he regarded industry as creation.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56It was an incredibly creative form.
0:45:57 > 0:45:59The solutions it comes up with,
0:45:59 > 0:46:04the patterns that it throws up in creating its products.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08And I think that was the thing that fascinated him most.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14This is an industrial Arcadia,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17where workers become starlets, and the sweat,
0:46:17 > 0:46:20toil and hardship are airbrushed from the picture.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28He was very much somebody who composed pictures,
0:46:28 > 0:46:31he wasn't somebody who took snaps.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33So he would have acknowledged that these images
0:46:33 > 0:46:34were projecting pride,
0:46:34 > 0:46:38optimism, and perhaps that not being the whole story
0:46:38 > 0:46:41- of the industrial landscape? - Yeah, I think so.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43And I think that was a real conflict in him.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46He couldn't wait to get out of industry when, you know,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48he managed to get out when he was about 20.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50And then became a photographer,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54being employed to make it look romantic and fantastic.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58I think he had a real love-hate relationship with industry
0:46:58 > 0:47:01because he saw all these people kind of
0:47:01 > 0:47:04giving their lives up for a pretty thankless task.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13In Broomfield's images, there is, beneath the glossy surface,
0:47:13 > 0:47:16a tremor of uncertainty.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19These workers were not really stars,
0:47:19 > 0:47:22just human cogs serving a vast machine.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26It was a new atomic age,
0:47:26 > 0:47:31a world far removed from the ideal industrial paradise.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40Fawley oil refinery was supposed to make us dream,
0:47:40 > 0:47:44but the promise of a brighter tomorrow never quite delivered.
0:47:59 > 0:48:00In Britain today,
0:48:00 > 0:48:02you don't have to travel far to get
0:48:02 > 0:48:05a taste of post-industrial apocalypse.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10Redcar steelworks on Teesside produced steel
0:48:10 > 0:48:13that helped build the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
0:48:13 > 0:48:16the new World Trade Center and the Shard.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21But its towering blast furnace,
0:48:21 > 0:48:26once the second largest in Europe, stands idle.
0:48:26 > 0:48:273,000 jobs lost,
0:48:27 > 0:48:32and the fiery core of this Teesside community extinguished.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Paul Warren worked here for over 30 years
0:48:39 > 0:48:42before the plant's closure in 2015.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47It was just, it's the heart, it's the heart of Teesside,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50it's the heart of the community.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54Someone within your family that you knew was attached to the steelworks.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58It was a brilliant feeling of coming together as a community.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02I remember coming to see this plant
0:49:02 > 0:49:06when it was sort of a belching beast with flames and smoke.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08How did that feel for you guys working in there?
0:49:08 > 0:49:14Just the smells and the noises and the whole velocity of making steel
0:49:14 > 0:49:16gave you that sense of achievement.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18You were working towards something.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22As well as your break. You were working towards an end product.
0:49:22 > 0:49:24But, yes, at the end of the day, after your 12-hour shift,
0:49:24 > 0:49:28to know that you contributed was a good self achievement.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34It was just a great atmosphere of work.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36Should you still be making steel here?
0:49:36 > 0:49:40Definitely. Definitely, yes.
0:49:40 > 0:49:42We should still be making steel on Teesside.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45And if we were, we'd be making it well.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48As I said that, water came to my eye.
0:49:49 > 0:49:54It's tough. It's tough to reflect upon what obviously this means...
0:49:54 > 0:49:57I left school at 16. I left school at 16, I went straight into there.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02It's really, really sad to think that we've ended in this way.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09Across the country,
0:50:09 > 0:50:13industrial sites that helped build modern Britain are in disarray.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19And it's become much harder for us to imagine
0:50:19 > 0:50:23that these places belong any longer at the heart of our identity.
0:50:30 > 0:50:35Industry has largely been redacted from our national self-portrait,
0:50:35 > 0:50:38its ruins are rarely included in those lists
0:50:38 > 0:50:41of Britain's most cherished heritage sites.
0:50:41 > 0:50:43And to some extent,
0:50:43 > 0:50:46we all do bear some responsibility for that neglect.
0:50:46 > 0:50:51As an artist I've manufactured paintings using artistic license
0:50:51 > 0:50:55to sell a romantic picture of our landscape.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59And together we do collude with those who want us to buy into a
0:50:59 > 0:51:02picturesque and prime-time vision of Britain.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06You know, that view you get from the towers of Downton Abbey.
0:51:07 > 0:51:12Politicians would have me believe that this is a tombstone,
0:51:12 > 0:51:15but I can still feel the pulse of something big here.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19It's like stumbling across a beached whale that's hopeless,
0:51:19 > 0:51:23helpless, but still radiating an aura
0:51:23 > 0:51:27of power and dignity in spite of its death.
0:51:28 > 0:51:33Today, in this brave new world where we order up our life online,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37in the lonely glow of a computer screen,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40there is apparently no room for this any more.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43And I, for one, I don't buy into that.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48We are in the north, and this, this was once a powerhouse.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05We are surrounded by monuments we should no longer ignore.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11When engineers built our infrastructure, they created,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15sometimes inadvertently, great industrial sculptures.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19Icons of enlightened and functional beauty.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27This is the Finnieston Crane in Glasgow,
0:52:27 > 0:52:30and it's an object which has fascinated me all my life.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32I've drawn it repeatedly.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39It was designed with a purpose,
0:52:39 > 0:52:41in order to load steam locomotives onto ships
0:52:41 > 0:52:43for export all across the world,
0:52:43 > 0:52:48but now it stands like a glorious Glaswegian Eiffel Tower,
0:52:48 > 0:52:52a genuine work of industrial art.
0:53:05 > 0:53:10I find that when we build modern monuments to our industrial past,
0:53:10 > 0:53:13they're always a bit self-conscious, sentimental even.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16I'm no great fan of the Angel Of The North or the Orbit,
0:53:16 > 0:53:21they look to me like ostentatious pieces of industrial bling.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24But this, the Finnieston Crane, is the real deal.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32If we could begin to cherish
0:53:32 > 0:53:35these neglected parts of our national heritage,
0:53:35 > 0:53:38and the art that engages with industry,
0:53:38 > 0:53:42then perhaps we might learn to see ourselves anew,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45to recast our image of Britain.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55And when we embrace the bond between art and industry,
0:53:55 > 0:54:01creativity and science, then the future looks pretty extraordinary.
0:54:06 > 0:54:11Don't mistake this for a cast-off from an episode of Robot Wars.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16This is the very frontier of space technology.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20And one day the sisters of this very rover will drill
0:54:20 > 0:54:26their aluminium limbs deep into the surface of Mars,
0:54:26 > 0:54:29a mere 429 million miles away.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34They'll be searching for life,
0:54:34 > 0:54:37and that's a picture of industry to blow your mind.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43The laboratory where they are being tested
0:54:43 > 0:54:46has been painstakingly created to match
0:54:46 > 0:54:50the terrain and light conditions of Mars.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53Yet it's situated on the outskirts of Stevenage.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58It's just one part of a remarkable complex
0:54:58 > 0:55:02where pioneering interplanetary space projects
0:55:02 > 0:55:04are engineered and constructed.
0:55:06 > 0:55:08It's the future as Maurice Broomfield imagined it
0:55:08 > 0:55:09in his photographs.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12One where the promises of a better world
0:55:12 > 0:55:17are matched by the bizarre artistry of modern industry.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29These creations wouldn't appear out of place
0:55:29 > 0:55:31in a conceptual art gallery.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38All of the projects we work on here are really inspirational,
0:55:38 > 0:55:40they're all going to do incredible things,
0:55:40 > 0:55:41and they're all going to space.
0:55:41 > 0:55:43But the rover is just another level,
0:55:43 > 0:55:46it's going to leave tracks on another planet
0:55:46 > 0:55:49and touch another world, that's just incredible.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51When I wander around here,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54I can't help but think that all these satellites and rovers
0:55:54 > 0:55:57look really sculptural, even down to the minutest little pipework.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59Yes. A lot of the things that we design
0:55:59 > 0:56:02you could put in a museum and nobody would know
0:56:02 > 0:56:06if it was a sculptural piece or a technical, functional piece.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08Engineering always has an aesthetic side of it.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12If you can have something that fits the function but still is beautiful,
0:56:12 > 0:56:15then absolutely, that's the best thing to have.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17So they do become really quite beautiful sometimes.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22I only became an engineer because I love art, I love making things,
0:56:22 > 0:56:26creating things. Having an idea and seeing that built in real life.
0:56:26 > 0:56:28And what I find quite amazing is
0:56:28 > 0:56:31that so much of this process is not in itself robotosized,
0:56:31 > 0:56:33it's individual people labouring quite intensely,
0:56:33 > 0:56:35like monks, over specific parts.
0:56:35 > 0:56:39Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me how manual all the processes
0:56:39 > 0:56:41that go into making a rover are,
0:56:41 > 0:56:43because we're only making one of them.
0:56:43 > 0:56:44It's not like a mass production of a car.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46The fact that it is handmade
0:56:46 > 0:56:48just gives it such a human aspect that
0:56:48 > 0:56:50you're not just sending a machine into space,
0:56:50 > 0:56:53you're sending the heart of all those people that made it.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57I think it is just extraordinary to hear directly from a space engineer
0:56:57 > 0:56:59that art, artistry,
0:56:59 > 0:57:02art history, creating beauty has a place amongst all of this.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04I find that really life affirming.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08And I think that these two elements should be brought closer more often.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16Fortunately, a new generation of budding artists
0:57:16 > 0:57:19and engineers are rising to the challenge.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24So this robot is called the Scuttle Bug.
0:57:24 > 0:57:28My rover is called the Rock Buster.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32This Mars rover is called Peake Box, inspired by Tim Peake.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34The name is Rocky.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36And it has, like, solar powers.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39So my robot is called Dust Walker.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42My robot is called Mars Dog 2.0.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45He's got wheels that he rolls on,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48but then if they break down, he can walk.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52And then I've got a thermal imaging camera,
0:57:52 > 0:57:59which can see if there's any life hiding in the rocks.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03The main body is based on an anteater.
0:58:04 > 0:58:09The whisk on his nose is a drill.
0:58:15 > 0:58:19I find the art of industry endlessly inspiring
0:58:19 > 0:58:24because it's not just about the past and who we've been,
0:58:24 > 0:58:27it's about who we are and where we're going.
0:58:27 > 0:58:29It's about human ambition.
0:58:30 > 0:58:33And sitting here on Mars,
0:58:33 > 0:58:36it feels to me that it's actually about
0:58:36 > 0:58:38reaching out and grasping at
0:58:38 > 0:58:40the furthest limits of human possibility.
0:58:44 > 0:58:48You'll have to forgive me for painting at least one landscape.
0:58:48 > 0:58:50And after all, Mars does present me
0:58:50 > 0:58:54with a curiously picturesque panorama.