Windrush Day: Carnival Art Workshop!
Windrush Day: Carnival Art Workshop!
Art of the Caribbean with John Lyons
22 June 2019
Essex Record Office, Chelmsford CM2 6YT
We invited all to come and make their own Caribbean style carnival masks and headpieces with award winning artist and poet John Lyons. This was a free drop-in event for families, children and adults.
Participants showed off their designs at after the workshop, wearing their Carnival masks and headpieces, and dancing to live music from the Phase 5 Steelpan Band.
Here are some photo highlights (from our Flickr image archive):
More about John
Trinidad-born John Lyons is a Windrush Arts Achievement Award winner, a prize-winning poet and a recognized painter. He has seven published collections of poems and a cookery book, ‘Cook-up in a Trini Kitchen’. His most recent collection of poems for children was short-listed by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (Clpe): CLIPPA Award 2016. He has contributed to numerous poetry anthologies and his poems are included in the Poetry Archive. As a creative writing tutor he has worked for the Arvon Foundation on several occasions. As an artist, John has exhibited nationally and internationally; his paintings and prints are privately collected and are represented in national public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Arts Council National Collection, Rochdale Gallery ‘Touchstones’ and Huddersfield Public Art Gallery.
Windrush Day in Chelmsford
Essex is the Place For Me!
Saturday 22 June
This event was part of our Windrush Day celebrations at Essex Record Office on 22 June, when we invited all to join us to talk about Windrush, and also celebrate Afro-Caribbean culture with a whole day of food, music, dance, poetry and art. There was live music from the Phase 5 Steelpan Band, food from Jerk Station, plus a programme of talks and films, a family drop-in workshop and a pop-up exhibition. The event was hosted by our compere, Lawrence Walker, Chair of Black History Month Colchester.
Read about the whole day’s programme here
The day was supported through the Government’s Windrush Day Grant Scheme to support communities to commemorate and celebrate the outstanding contribution of the Windrush Generation and their descendants. 50 community groups and local authorities across the country used the funding to lead school projects, street parties, exhibitions, talks and workshops to recognise and honour the immense legacy of those who stepped ashore at Tilbury Docks over 70 years ago.
