Jeremy Deller's work has led him to assume the roles of curator, mediator, producer and publisher. He frequently engages in collaborations that seem straightforward, but are actually complex and multi-layered, fusing seemingly disparate elements such as state of the art technology and old-fashioned industry, or contemporary culture and folk art.

Nearly ten years ago, Deller created a series of posters for exhibitions he would have liked to curate. Many of them were based on the lives and work of musicians and bands. As Deller explains, they ‘sprung from the way rock music has employed the language of art history to describe itself; Modernist, Gothic, and Romantic being the most obvious examples'. He initially put the posters in public places, including his college, the Courtald Institute, where they blended into their environment. At the same time, he made another series of posters for fictional talks and historical trips. One of these advertised a re-enactment of a clash between coal miners and police in 1984 in South Yorkshire. This poster was the origin of The Battle of Orgreave (2001), Deller’s most high-profile project to date.

Deller's idea of re-staging the original conflict was realised in a project produced by Artangel in 2001. The artist enlisted the help of The Sealed Knot, a group of military re-enactment enthusiasts, as well as ex-miners and members of the constabulary who had participated in the original incident. Deller maintained that his interest was less in the actual re-enactment than in bringing about a long-overdue dialogue about the original event. The only lasting document of the work was the documentary film The Battle of Orgreave, made by Mike Figgis in 2001. The film serves as a record of Deller’s artwork, but also provides an alternative to the media portrayal of the event 17 years earlier.

Throughout his career, Deller has collaborated closely with musicians, from traditional brass bands to the Manic Street Preachers. In one of his most recent projects, Deller collaborated with Robert Blackson, a curating student at Bard College in upstate New York. In line with his interest in vernacular culture, Deller wanted to create a portrait of the small town where the college is located, solely through a CD of the music created by its residents. Through the sounds of owls' hoots, cheerleaders' chants, a children's choir and the music of a local country and western band, a vision of the town's character and culture begins to emerge.

In 1994, Deller decided to embark on a quest for the maracas-shaking, goggle-eyed, 24-hour party animal Mark Berry (aka Bez), who used to be a backing dancer for the indie band The Happy Mondays. The Search for Bez (1994) took place in Manchester, Bez’s home town, and took the form of the artist wandering around the city centre armed with a video camera and a home-made map asking unsuspecting passers-by, ‘Have you seen Bez?’

Jeremy Deller (born 1966 in England) lives and works in London.