Windrush Amplified Art 2025
Thanks to a partnership with the newly opened V&A East Storehouse, 2025’s artist Jazz Grant had the opportunity to explore the vast new archive to inspire her new collage artwork'To Travel this Ship’. The artwork went on display in the V&A East and will be a permanent mural in the newly refurbished Hackney Central library in 2026.
Jazz Grant was selected by the Culture team, with support of V&A Curators, to be 2025’s Windrush Amplified Art recipient making her the first woman to take part in the V&A’s micro-residency. The residency is a four-day scheme providing a paid opportunity to explore their new archive which arrived in Hackney Wick in spring 2025. Within the scheme, artists are to produce work and host a public drop-in show and tell session where they would reveal objects that most resonated with them.
Jazz is renowned for her mixed media collages and stop-motion animations and has created murals for Jay-Z's Book of HOV exhibition, cover art for Dazed magazine, as well as brand partnerships with Burberry, Gucci, and Adidas. She employs a meticulous process of sourcing, photographing, and hand-cutting materials to create her pieces.
Jazz began her research residency at V&A East Storehouse by reflecting on her Jamaican heritage and what resonances she could find within the V&A’s archive.
Jazz Grant at the Show and Tell event at the V&A East Storehouse - October 2025
Jazz gravitated towards five particular items in the V&A Storehouse Archive which she found in her residency:
A Jamaican Lacebark Mat (the oldest Jamaica item she could find dated 1800s),
Costume designs of Trinidadian carnival designer Peter Minshall - a design for the costume of the Sun for a production of Beauty and the Beast performed by the Scottish Ballet at Sadler’s Wells theatre in 1969.
Also from Minshall’s collection, she picked out an elaborate cloak he created for Trinidadian Mustapha Matura’s satirical play Play Mas.
A National Dance Theatre of Jamaica poster from 1972
Mary Hogarth’s embroidered screen from the 1920s as she enjoyed the idea of an artwork taking up space in a way that’s almost like a piece of furniture but still serves as an artwork.
Three of the archive items Jazz used to inspire her work: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
To Travel This Ship - final collage by Jazz Grant
Also within the collage are photographs taken by prolific photographer, Howard Grey, which have become symbolic of the Windrush Generation’s arrival at Waterloo Station. Grey’s photography also features on the cover of Homecoming - by her father Colin Grant a testament of the enduring creativity from one Windrush generation to the next.
Lace bark - the oldest Jamaican item Jazz could find - © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
You can visit more of Jazz Grant’s work at: jazzgrantstudio.com