Jazz Grant

Jazz Grant is a visual artist, predominantly working with collage, mixed media and animation

Jazz Grant stands in front of her mural

Artist Jazz Grant created the mural ‘To Travel this Ship’ in Hackney Central Library.

She says: “‘To Travel this Ship’ was a collage made in response to a commission for the Hackney Windrush Amplified Art Grant in collaboration with the V&A East Storehouse.

“That was a four-day residency where I was able to sift through the V&A archives looking for inspiration in order to make an artwork that was to celebrate the Windrush generation, of which I am a descendent.

“I wanted to make something full of life, full of people and textures that for me felt quite hopeful but also grounded in the local Hackney scenery.

“I wanted to create a sense of carnival, of celebration. There are also the concrete buildings to ground it to a sense of place, specifically Hackney.

“I was lucky enough to work with Howard Grey’s photographs. He’d taken these incredible photos of the Windrush generation when they were arriving at Waterloo station.

“The details of the foliage are inspired by lace bark from the V&A and the green foliage is a hibiscus plant, which is a plant found widely in the Caribbean. The oranges are a nod to Ridley Road market.

“I wanted to have blue to reflect the sky. Being in a library, being inside, I wanted the mural to be a bit like a window – giving that sense of outside.

“I feel passionately that art should be in spaces that are accessible because many people think art isn’t for them. We should be integrating art into more public spaces.

“It’s interesting to have this mural in the library, among books, because it’s a nod to history and storytelling – and thinking about the stories that are important to the community.

“I think the mural could inspire people to think about their own history in a different way.”