British photographer Mark Pinder (b.1966, Cumbria) has spent nearly four decades documenting the evolving social, political and economic landscape of the UK, with a particular focus on the North East of England. Trained at the Newport College of Art under Magnum photographer David Hurn, Pinder has built a career through editorial assignments for publications such as The Guardian, Financial Times and The Economist with a sustained, long-form documentary inquiry into class, identity and regional experience.

From the Pit Up presents a focused narrative strand within Pinder’s broader ‘state of the nation’ project – an ongoing body of work initiated in the mid-1980s. The exhibition offers a portrait of working-class life and cultural resilience in former mining communities, interweaving themes of locality, youth, heritage and collective memory.

This exhibition follows the acclaimed Macromancy: Britain and the North East of England, 1986–2022, shown at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (NGCA) and is accompanied by a monograph published by Kerber Verlag. Pinder’s photographs are held in collections including the NGCA, IKS Düsseldorf and the Martin Parr Foundation.