From the Depths

“From the depths” to capture stories of the Windrush Generation before they are lost to time… how did the Nationality Act of 1948 reshape the British Empire?

Diane Louise Jordan’s portrait symbolically rests at the top of this inaugural painting next to the heritage homeland of Jamaica over her shoulder.

Edna Mae was the first interview I listened to for this inaugural The Making of Black Britain painting, and her portrait was symbolically the first to be added to the work. I chose a still frame from a short video that was taken of her in the garden just outside her house, as growing (and selling) flowers had been such a large part of her livelihood. In my heart was a desire to portray Edna Mae in later life with such vibrancy and honour befitting such a gem of a woman.

I was struck with this image of Shanti in younger life, full of vitality and dignity and in the throws of the hard work that came to define his legacy. Embedded over him is the “Expanding Square Search” algorithm of Bayes Theorem, and it connects back to his homeland of Uganda in the African detail to his right. 

The third interview I wove into the storyline of this painting was of Peter. I was struck by how uneventful and down-to-earth his interview began, only to find out in the later portion about what a significant role he played in national government with the unions and how many significant men of history he met, including the Pope and Nelson Mandela, amongst others.  

Vanley, the official Making of Black Britain photographer, was added in just below his mother Edna Mae. What had originally been her reciprocal symbol of hexagon and circle over her should now morphed in the aperture of a camera with Vanley in the centre - a wonderfully unlooked for and appropriate metaphor for our photographer. He appears twice, once in portrait form and again beside while photographing.

Diane is again depicted in the midst of an interview with Auntie Marlene in the lower right corner. It is from the depths of these interviews, the hidden and otherwise “lost” regions of memory that Diane is submerging, drawing history, story, memory and truth back to the surface to be examined and rediscovered. She is the submarine. She is the homing beacon on the navigational charts. The Making of Black Britain is the map where these recovered treasures are cataloged and displayed.