We Are Here - Photographing Waltham Forest Windrush Residents

Image17, a collective of photographers based in Waltham Forest, launches a new photography heritage project, ‘We Are Here’, exhibiting at the Vestry House Museum in Waltham Forest from 5th March – 1st November 2020.

Supported through The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Vestry House Museum,
Waltham Forest Council and Eastside Community Heritage, the project focuses on capturing Waltham Forest’s ‘Windrush’ residents who came to the UK from the Caribbean to create new lives in the borough from the 1950s to the 1970s.

‘We Are Here’ exhibits 50 new photographic portraits alongside over 100 personal family pictures, mementos and oral testimonies, providing a peek into lives lived in the borough. These residents have contributed to the fabric of Waltham Forest in numerous and surprising ways, yet little evidence of this exists in the borough’s archives.
‘We Are Here’ uncovers some of these stories which will be archived at Vestry House Museum, available to be shared with all and for posterity.

‘We Are Here’ is the focal point for 9 months of activities that celebrate this important unsung generation and marks the 72nd year since the arrival of the Empire Windrush in June 1948. The exhibition also builds upon the legacy of Waltham Forest’s year as the first-ever London Borough of Culture in 2019.

The project incorporates work with local primary, secondary and sixth form students to gain oral history training and participate in magazine workshops which will embed the stories and experiences of this intrepid generation.

Further events will include 2 curator/ artist talks and 2 themed family days. A set of dedicated teaching resource materials based on the exhibition is being developed, to be used in Waltham Forest schools.