Destroyed 1985 mural celebrating Windrush generation returns home to Brixton

A destroyed 1985 mural has returned to Brixton almost 30 years after it was painted over during the construction of a new housing complex.

A large-scale poster reproduction of the original mural – by Gavin Jantjes and Tam Joseph – was unveiled outside Brixton Academy in Stockwell Road yesterday. 

The recreation is the work of JACK ARTS, part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD, and makes up part of Mr Jantjes’s new exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery – on view until September 1.

Spanning 23 metres wide, the original mural was commissioned by the Greater London Council’s Ethnic Minorities Unit in celebration of Brixton’s windrush communities. 

It remained in Railton Road’s Dexter Square for nearly 10years, until it was painted over during the construction of a new housing complex. 

Across the work stories of migration, police enforcement of the ‘Sus law’ within black and ethnic minority populations, the Brixton riots of 1982 and the New Cross fire of 1981 unfold. 

It also celebrates figures such as poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, giving the mural its title: The Dream, The Rumour and The Poet’s Song.

Pictured top: Gavin Jantjes with Tam Joseph The Dream, The Rumourand the Poet’s Song 1985 Mural at Dexter Square, Railton Road, Brixton (Picture: courtesy Gavin Jantjes)