But artist and writer Darian Zam soon realised creating portraits, adding a few of the subjects’ own words to tell their story and then exhibiting portraits would not do.

Zam learned these people had much more to say about what had happened on their mountain and how progress, and Australia’s biggest industrial disaster, had affected their lives.

The people he refers to include Mount Kembla’s very own ‘’living treasures’’ in former miner and union activist Fred Moore and well-known playwright Wendy Richardson.

But the project itself was born only a week after Zam moved from Sydney in 2008 and took up residence in an old ‘’decrepit’’ billiards hall in Mt Kembla.

‘’I met an 85-year-old man at the pub who said to me ‘why don’t you paint my portrait, then?’, ‘’ Zam said.

‘’At first I thought that was a bit cheeky of him but when I went home to that cold, rattling house I had rented, I realised that was actually a great idea. Thus, a project was born.’’

It also set in motion a six-year-long creative adventure, full of fascinating characters, in an old mining town where time had more or less stood still.

‘’As such, the main focus has been on the mine tragedy rather than aspects of living, working and interacting in the aftermath,’’ Zam said.

‘’This project is a way to make a valuable record of history in this community. The title [Coalfaces] of the series conveys putting a face to a community primarily known for mining, overshadowed by the spectre of a catastrophe.’’

The 220-page book includes 15 portraits of local identities and their stories, including the cover shot of Bruce Rees, who ran an apple orchard in Cordeaux.

Subjects are from a breadth of fields from miners and farmers to photographers and artists.

‘’It is important to capture these stories as our last physical connection to a particular place and era - a time capsule, if you will,’’ Zam said.

‘’This work should be seen as a rediscovery of identity as well as representing an evolution of history - reminding the community that stories are happening now and all the time, not just in the past; we are surrounded by living treasures in our everyday place.’’

The 'Coalfaces' project will be launched at Wollongong Art Gallery on Saturday, March 11 from 6pm. Illawarra Musuem manager John Shipp will open the book launch and exhibition.