The Borinage is one of the most famous industrial regions of Wallonia (and of the classic industrial revolution in general) because of its history of hard and long social strikes, for instance, a two-month long 1932 strike in this region, as well as Liège and Charleroi.
The living conditions of the miners were featured in the famous documentary film Misère au Borinage (1933) made by Henri Storck and Joris Ivens.
Borinage itself had already been made famous in the 1934 silent film of Joris Ivens, “Misere au Borinage”; in the paintings of Henry Luyten of the 1860s of the great strikes of the time; and for being the home town of Vincent van Gogh.