Windrush 75

Windrush 75: Living Legacy was an exhibition held at LCC during Black History Month and part of the Windrush 75: Reimagining Our Futures project, led by Senior Lecturer Maureen Salmon. The exhibition celebrated the creativity, aesthetics and cultural legacy of Windrush, and featured stories and experiences shared through the interdisciplinary and multimedia practices of contributors.

Two recent Graphic & Media Design graduates, Mike Williams and Pearl Gerald, acted as co-curators for the exhibition and we asked them to reflect on their experience:

My role as an Assistant Curator, with Mike, was to take the existing work that we made for our smaller exhibition on Windrush Day, 22nd June 2023, and see how we could develop and push the projects further for it to fit into a bigger space. Mike did a great job with the layout of the exhibition and establishing the exhibition‘s identity which really helped to bring the show together. I helped more with the installation of the artworks and see how to place them on the wall to give it that dynamic effect.

I really enjoyed working on this project as it allowed me to explore and understand my family history and in a sense create my own family tree, tracing back my grandparents‘ arrival to the UK from Dominica in 1956 and the things that followed on – their marriage in 1957, getting British citizenship and then creating a life here, and how that has influenced me to the present day in enabling me to become who I am. My grandfather had his own printing business and used to design and print invites to parties on his own printing press, which makes me think I got my love of Graphic Design from him. So there is a lot of gratitude to them also and this exhibition was my way of paying homage to them and their legacy”.

– Pearl Gerald

For the Windrush exhibition project, my role was as an Assistant Curator along with Pearl. The job role was to organise what the exhibition was going to be, along with the artists that would be contributing. To make this happen, Pearl and I designed a floor plan to mark out where the artwork will go. From there, I managed to develop the floor plan to have each wall design represent the nationality of the Caribbean Islands which led me to make the marketing packaging (posters, banners, t-shirts etc.). This experience has helped me understand more about my Caribbean roots and the untold history of Britain and Black Culture”.

– Mike Williams