Windrush Wonder Art was an intergenerational community programme that highlighted and celebrated the contribution of Windrush communities to UK life. Collage Arts delivered a wide-ranging set of research, development and creative community workshops in our McQueens Theatre, and in primary and secondary schools in Haringey. These connected generations of children and young people with Windrush elders, where stories and themes were gathered and shared about their lived experience.

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These themes and stories were developed through art-making workshops with professional artists into specific works of art, some individual artworks and others whole-group art collaborations. Participants used different media including clay, paint, photography, collage and drawing. Four professional artists were also commissioned to make artworks for the project relating to workshop themes.

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All of these artworks were displayed across Haringey, including in our three galleries at Collage Arts throughout July and August 2025. A selection of the original work was also scheduled for exhibition during Haringey's London Borough of Culture in 2027.

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Reason for Project

Two catalysts underpinned the development and design of this project. Firstly, themes initially emerged during workshops with secondary school–aged young people from Windrush Caribbean communities during our Windrush Wonder Stories project in 2023. In these workshops, it became clear that recent language in mainstream society had warped understanding of what it meant to be a British citizen and how immigration had been invited and welcomed throughout our history to help Britain grow and prosper. We found a worrying number of young people could only contextualise the experience of invited citizens emigrating to Britain as refugees. Across our borough we had some of the highest rates of diversity in the country, and yet there were young people who were unclear about their histories and the contribution of their communities due to the mixed societal external messaging about their identity.

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Secondly, the Windrush Wonder Stories set of children's books published in 2023 included artwork and illustrations that were curated into a small exhibition, which generated significant positive feedback. We believed all generations from the Windrush communities should be proud of their diverse heritage and feel equally important in the fabric of British society. We also believed that non-Windrush communities should celebrate these contributions and share in the courage, resilience and creativity that the Windrush communities had shown. This project aimed to address the above and celebrate the positive contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants.