REFER
The Museum of Cambridge is excited to launch our new community co-curated exhibition ‘Legacies of Windrush in Cambridge’, in partnership with Dr Carol Brown-Leonardi and the African Caribbean Research Group, opening on 26th of April 2025. The first exhibition of its kind, it shines a light on the lives and experiences of the Caribbean Windrush community and those who left an indelible mark on Cambridge and the UK.
Featuring for the first time a series of oral histories from local Caribbean Elders in Cambridge, the oral histories capture special moments of family history, experiences and invaluable community stories. Stories collected in partnership with Dr Carol Brown-Leonardi share the fantastic legacy of the Windrush generation through music, food, religion, the arts and community. From pub landlords, local newsagent owners and steelpan bands, the exhibition celebrates the people at the heart of Cambridge’s community.
This project was only made possible thanks to public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
“Legacies of Windrush in Cambridge” will open on Saturday 26th April 2025, and remain on display until January 2026. Standard entry applies.
Find out more here and don’t miss out!
http://www.museumofcambridge.org.uk/legacies-of-windrush…/
See less
A Guided Immersive & Interactive Audio-Walk Around Brixton.
• Its Free and easy to use
• A gentle stroll of 45mins -1hr, with seated breaks (2km).
• Journey can be paused & reaccessed at any point
• Compatible with i-Phone 9 or Android OS 10 and above.
• Designed for headphones.
HOW TO ACCESS SONGSTREETS
Step 1: DOWNLOAD The ASWARM XR App.
- Ideally Download Before You Go – via Faster Broadband
- Note: The App may take 1-5 mins to download & open.
Step 2: GO TO START by the 2 Big Trees just 30 yards to the right, on exiting Brixton Tube Station.
- (Near Pret) 419 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8HE
- 51.463087, -0.114776
Step 3: OPEN ASWARM XR App + then open SONGSTREETS from Menu.
- The App will instruct you from there. – Enjoy your journey!!
APP LINK – APPLE IOS MOBILE PHONE
APP LINK – ANDROID MOBILE PHONE
Songstreets offers an interactive journey through the streets and culture of Brixton, accessed via Aswarm XR’s mobile app – Led by the knowledge of Black Brixtonites, we journey into the heart and fire of what empowers this unique place, exploring how songs can spark pathways into the hidden stories & cultural memories embedded in our streets.
SONGSTREETS is experienced as a guided interactive walk via an app on your mobile phone. We invite you to immerse yourself in the streets and culture, encountering the characters, stories and songs that make Brixton resonate, in an intimate, moving and ultimately uplifting performance experience.
these songs sort of preserve a time that 100 yrs in the future, we may be very disconnected to. »Jessie Lloyd
Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival celebrates the world’s First Nations in an explosion of art, performance and debate
It began when Border Crossings ORIGINS Festival commissioned us to respond to the work of Indigenous Australian musician Jessie Lloyd, who they had commissioned to undertake a residency in Brixton, working with the local community to discover songs and stories from the 75 years that have passed since the Windrush brought the first post-war migrants to London from the Caribbean.
Jessie Lloyd applied the methodology that she evolved to work with Indigenous Elders in her MISSION SONGS project, and collaborating with Brixton-born artist Tony Cealy, she explored the commonalities of experience between Indigenous Australians and Black Britons, using music to commemorate local heritage, within global histories of racism and emerging processes of reconciliation.
Inspired by the parallels between Jessie’s grandfather Albie Geia, who was a leader in the 1957 Palm Island Strike, which, like the events in Brixton in 1981, were labelled ‘riots’ ( leading to Albie’s imprisonment), the project draws on ‘Brixton’s’ role as a site & beacon of resistance. These connections also coincided with 81 Acts movement, commemorating the 40 Anniversary of the Brixton uprisings of 1981.
Our response to Jessie’s residency is Songstreets; a site-specific, immersive experience that weaves the songs through the streets of Brixton and uncovers their extraordinary stories.
We worked closely with Brixton artist Tony Cealy as the lead narrator and a host of incredible local voices – from activists to musicians, homeless folk to sound-system experts, Caribbean elders groups to pirate radio MC’s – we walked talked and recorded a series of stories that emerged from these streets and these songs. – The result is this truly site-specific journey, accessed through our AswarmXR mobile app.
MM
MM
MM
A whole host of incredibly talented people contributed to Songstreets in many ways: some composed new songs, some offered their own renditions of songs they felt were relevant to contribute, some added choral layers to group numbers and others contributed spoken stories or thoughts and reflections that left ripples.. all left footprints that resonated in these streets and it is to them we owe this piece.
They include:
- Article Bird Legs
- *Audrey Eccleston
- Beryl & Her dog Marley
- Bionic – Sound System culture expert, whose tiny store on Atlantic Rd, represents one of the last bastions of Brixton’s Dub session sound – long may he hold his ground.
- *Carlton Brodin – Also recorded: HIll & Gully ( Jamaican Folk Song) + Enjoy Yourself ( Prince Buster version)
- *Dawn McKay – Also voice on walk
- *Dawn
- * FLOetic Lara : http://www.laraleeofficial.com
- Insey – Homeless women on Street
- * Joanne
- * Judith
- The Junglites Ian Geoghegan
- * Lena Douggan
- Linett Kamala – Artist & Olive Morris expert: http://www.linettkamala.com www.instagram.com/linett_kamala
- Margaret
- * Mervelee Myers – Wrote the new song Brixton Market, music composed in collaboration with Jessie Lloyd: http://www.mervelee.com
- * Michele
- * Nadia Rahman
(* = The voices who sang: Brixton Market, Brown Girl, Rivers of Babylon, Three Little Birds, Windrush/Irex Sails away.)
- Community arts practitioner: Lucy Dunkerley (Border Crossings)
- Narrator : Voice actor Vivienne Rochester
Ambient Contributions & Community Sessions:
- – Age Uk Cafe Vida – Windrush elders club
– Brixton Library
– Brixton Dominoes Club
– Advocacy Academy
Studio recording sessions @ Raw Materials (Brixton):
- Engineers: Simon Hendry & Thor McB
- Studio Assistant: Laik Burnie-Etienne
Border Crossings >> Producers
BORDER CROSSINGS’ ORIGINS FESTIVAL CELEBRATES THE WORLD’S FIRST NATIONS IN AN EXPLOSION OF ART, PERFORMANCE AND DEBATE.
ORIGINS creates a unique opportunity to engage with Indigenous artists and activists at the cutting edge of cultural resistance, environmentalism and spiritual tradition. Working with some of the most significant cultural institutions in London, ORIGINS brings the world’s Indigenous artists and cultures to the heart of the capital.
Border Crossings came to us back in 2020, as part of the 81Acts movement (commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Brixton Uprisings of 1981) and the UK/Australia season 21/22, with the question how could we use our unique skill – for connecting people, place and technology into interactive public art works- to respond and compose to Jessies Lloyds research within Brixton’s community. – We then promptly entered the Covid era.. We’re really delighted to say we’ve since built a really good collaborative working relationship, together making sure the seeds of Jessie Lloyd’s residency in Brixton have grown and blossomed into something we’re really proud of: Songstreets – An art project that is both rooted in the Black and Caribbean community of Brixton and that has tendrils that reach deep down under responding to Jessies perspective too.
Jessie Lloyd >> Musician
Jessie Lloyd is an award-winning Indigenous Australian singer, social historian and cultural practitioner of Indigenous song, who revives the music of Indigenous Elders in Australia. As with Jessie’s MISSION SONGS PROJECT, in Brixton she embarked on a musical journey with the local community, to research and reveal the forgotten stories and unexplored corners of recent history. Her process ranged from collaborating with the community to compose new songs, to recording existing songs that the community felt served to trigger and carry stories, to writing her own inspired by these encounters.
Tony Cealy >> Artist & Lead Narrator
Arts Practitioner and Trainer for Drama and Theatre. Producer of Programmes, Workshops and Theatre Projects. Born in Brixton, a child of the Windrush, Tony is one of those people you cant walk 20 yards down the road with, without bumping into someone he knows, whose smile and greeting leads to conversation. – He was a key person opening the doors for Jessie into this community. Walking and talking with Tony, recording the stories that emerge from these streets and the characters we encountered on our various journey’s provided the pot of sauces to cook up this piece and fed the threads to weave these songs around these streets. As Practitioner, Tony uses drama and theatre to encourage self-awareness and to assist individuals in exploring the idea of change and the impact that it may have on their lives. His projects and programmes vary from more recreational, usually drama-based activities leading to theatre or digital multimedia productions, to institutional change, to founding and running groups that are empowered to make this happen. https://tonycealy.com/
Leon Barker >> Creative Technologist
Leon is a Creative Technologist whose joined forces with us to build the platform Aswarm XR.
Also a former resident of Brixton, just off the Railton Rd, this journey and Black experience has a personal resonance for him.
Leon’s breadth of experience developing innovative projects across AR, VR and Mixed Reality as well as Interactive technology via his company Gesture Ltd, made him a natural collaborative partner .
Drawing on over 20 yrs of experience in both the corporate and Arts sector, Gesture offers an end-to-end design & development service.
Experienced in conducting R&D for organisations such as American Express, The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Honeywell, Hitachi, UBS, EE and Tideway. Gesture has also produced interactive content for London Fashion Week, the Venice Biennale and the Science Museum.
MM
A Guided Immersive & Interactive Audio-Walk Around Brixton.
• Its Free and easy to use
• A gentle stroll of 45mins -1hr, with seated breaks (2km).
• Journey can be paused & reaccessed at any point
• Compatible with i-Phone 9 or Android OS 10 and above.
• Designed for headphones.
HOW TO ACCESS SONGSTREETS
Step 1: DOWNLOAD The ASWARM XR App.
- Ideally Download Before You Go – via Faster Broadband
- Note: The App may take 1-5 mins to download & open.
Step 2: GO TO START by the 2 Big Trees just 30 yards to the right, on exiting Brixton Tube Station.
- (Near Pret) 419 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8HE
- 51.463087, -0.114776
Step 3: OPEN ASWARM XR App + then open SONGSTREETS from Menu.
- The App will instruct you from there. – Enjoy your journey!!
APP LINK – APPLE IOS MOBILE PHONE
Fight4justice 
