Black Country unionism. The 20th century saw a decline in coal mining in the Black Country, with the last colliery in the region – Baggeridge Colliery near Sedgley – closing on 2 March 1968, marking the end of an era after some 300 years of mass coal mining in the region, though a small number of open cast mines remained in use for a few years afterwards. As the heavy industry that had named the region faded away, in the 1970s a museum, called the Black Country Living Museum started to take shape on derelict land near to Dudley. Today this museum
The Living Museum The Living Museum The Living Museum in Queens County, New York City, United States, is an art studio dedicated to presenting the art produced by patients at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the largest state psychiatric care institution in New York City. The founders of the Living Museum were two scholars, Bolek Greczynki and Janos Marton, who sought asylum in the United States, at Columbia University’s School of Visual Arts in the early 1970s. Their idealism, influenced by ongoing studies of the work of André Breton, Jean Dubuffet, Meret Oppenheim, Hans Prinzhorn and Leo Navratil, led them to start the project