Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange (right), views an art piece done by United Kingdom Artist, Honey Williams, at the official unveiling of the Windrush Public Art Murals at the Norman Manley International Airport on August 29. With the Minister are (from left) Senior Director, Commercial Development and Planning, Airports Authority of Jamaica, Alfred McDonald; Former Director, British Council Jamaica, Olayinka Jacobs-Bonnick; and British High Commissioner to Jamaica, His Excellency Asif Ahmad. (Photo: JIS)—
The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, has unveiled a mural exhibition in the arrival and departure sections at the Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA) in Kingston in tribute to the Windrush Generation.
The unveiling was witnessed by the British High Commissioner to Jamaica, Asif Ahmad.
Grange said the exhibition was a tribute to the “resilience and indomitable spirit” of a generation of Jamaicans who responded to the invitation of post-Second World War Britain for laborers to help restore services and communities.
“From the climatic shock of cold, rainy England to the prejudices and discomforts of settling in a new and often unwelcoming environment to the reality of being alone in a strange land of reluctant neighbors, our people experienced every challenge in the book of ignorance and racism,” Grange said at the opening.
“Yet, they were undaunted. Their fearless, feisty Jamaican heritage was enough buffer against the many challenges they confronted… Armed with their Jamaican culture, heritage and traditions, they determined to make the best for themselves and their families… Through their indomitable spirit and resilience, they developed what has become the formidable Jamaican Diaspora of the United Kingdom,” she added.
The Windrush Mural project is a collaboration between the Grange’s ministry and the British Council. It features pieces by Jamaican and British artists: Honey Williams, Rosemarie Chung, Sheldon Blake, Tiana Anglin, Kirk Cockburn and Jamila Cooper.
Grange said that it was a deliberate move to exhibit the Windrush Murals first at the NMIA as it “signifies the changing form of transport, from sea to air, for migrants,” as well as promotes the airport as an artistic and cultural space.
The Windrush Mural exhibition will be mounted at the MNIA for three months, then move to downtown Kingston at the entrance to the National Gallery of Jamaica for six months. Following that, the exhibition will travel across Jamaica.
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