When American photographer Milton Rogovin visited mining communities in Ayrshire, Fife and Midlothian over three weeks in 1982, the images he took of people at work, rest and play captured a time and place just before those communities were upended by the strike that changed Britain forever. Forty years on, artist Nicky Bird followed in Rogovin’s footsteps, revisiting the places, the people and descendants of those originally depicted, marking the changes and memorialising the seismic past that shaped them.

The resulting and powerful exhibition puts images by both artists side by side, in a way that bridges generations, to tell a story that became one of the markers of late 20th-century society. Developed by Bird with the communities depicted, each photograph is captioned with a commentary by those in the thick of the scenes. From the grubby-faced men posing beside the pit or in the living room in Rogovin’s Family Of Miners, Scotland (1982) series, a portrait of an entire community comes to life. The juxtapositions of some images are telling. An 80s shot of a much-needed doctor’s surgery is set next to the same shop front’s current guise as a tanning salon. In others, where men stood in the mine works in Rogovin’s black-and-white contact sheets, Bird’s colour studies of the same locations show a landscape transformed.

Beyond the photographs, historical banners line the walls, while a miner’s overalls become a life-sized monument to old industry. Bird’s unearthing of Rogovin’s archive is treated with as much empathy as those in her own photographs. Combined, these two bodies of work form a vital piece of living history that is a testament to survival and the everyday heroism of those whose stories shaped their age

Nicky Bird & Milton Rogovin: Before And After Coal, National Galleries Of Scotland: Portrait, Edinburgh, until Sunday 15 September.