Windrush: Portrait of a Generation is the latest photo-story by award-winning social documentary photographer Jim Grover. It portrays the current lives and traditions of the first generation of Caribbean migrants, now in their late 60s to 90s.
A year in the making, and timed to co-incide with the 70th anniversary of ‘Windrush’ in 2018, it was created in clubs, homes, churches, cemeteries, and memorials around Clapham, Brixton, and Stockwell. The exhibition is curated by Katy Barron, Senior Director at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.
June 22nd 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks in 1948. The ship brought 802 young hopefuls from the Caribbean, mostly Jamaican men, to help rebuild Britain in the aftermath of the war.
This was a momentous event in the evolution of Britain’s cultural life: the arrival of those first passengers and ensuing steady flow of migrants from the Caribbean over the next 14 years, often referred to as the ‘Windrush generation’, was a major step in the creation of a multi-cultural Britain.
Many of the Windrush generation live in Brixton and Clapham in south London as some of the very first ‘Windrushers’ were accommodated in the underground war shelter at Clapham South and sought their first jobs at the Brixton labour exchange.