Holton Primary Pupils Celebrate Windrush Day with Art and Poetry Exhibition

Pupils from Holton Primary School in Barry have unveiled an exhibition of artwork to celebrate Windrush Day 2023.

Year 6 pupils worked with Cardiff-based artist Prith B to create portraits which featured members of their school community with diverse backgrounds. Through interviews, the children were given the opportunity to gain an understanding and awareness of authentic lived experiences with regard to belonging, and how those experiences might influence how they want to be represented in their portraits.

Members of the Vale of Glamorgan Council Cabinet were invited to the school to view the work and join in with their Windrush anniversary celebrations on Thursday 22 June.

Cllr Ruba Sivagnanam, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, Equalities and Regulatory Services, said: “We as a Council are proud to represent communities across the Vale which many culturally diverse people are a part of.

“This 75^th anniversary of Windrush is an opportunity to celebrate a diverse Britain, an opportunity to show gratitude to four generations of contribution, legacy, struggle, and positive change.

“This anniversary comes at a time when our public and political debate about issues of migration, race and history can be angry and polarised. Here in the Vale, we see the commemoration of Windrush as an opportunity to bring communities together, communities which have nurtured and flourished alongside each other for generations.”

“As we celebrate the incredible history of Windrush and the legacy it has created, we look to the future of the Vale and our work towards becoming a County of Sanctuary where anyone will be welcomed into our communities.”

The children were also fortunate to work with spoken word artist Duke Durham to create poems based on the community members involved in the project which they performed at the event.

The Windrush celebration is part of a wider project pupils have been working on to gain an understanding of the history and development of Wales as a culturally diverse society, kickstarting Holton Primary’s journey to becoming an anti-racist school and developing a decolonised curriculum.

2023 is the 75^th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain on 22 June 1948, where over 1000 passengers from across the Commonwealth docked in Tilbury Docks, Essex.

Over eight hundred passengers arrived from the Caribbean, with others from India, Pakistan, Kenya and South Africa.

Although the Windrush passengers were not the first people of the Global Majority to come to Britain, they heralded a generation of people who came from the Commonwealth in the 50s, 60s, and 70s to answer the call of the government to help rebuild Britain after the Second World War.

They created an invaluable legacy to all aspects of British life, from arts, music, cuisine, sport, medicine and more, helping establish the multi-cultural Britain that we know today.

The project was funded by Youth Cymru’s Cynefin grant for pupils to gain an understanding of the cultures and communities which make up a contemporary Wales, explore the experience and contributions of culturally and ethnically diverse people in Wales, past and present, and collaborate with creative professionals to develop a range of artistic skills.