London Against Racism. 1985 Mural project
In 1984, the Labour led Greater London Council’s (GLC) Ethnic Minorities Unit initiated ‘London Against Racism’, a year-long publicity campaign in which the Council produced awareness-raising advertisements and events aimed at developing policy and informing the public about the forms of racism that Londoners from ethnic minorities encountered in their daily lives.
Black and Asian British artists had frequently struggled for recognition, with long-established arts institutions and funding bodies often failing to acknowledge the significance of their work and denying them opportunities to exhibit. This situation was challenged by the GLC which allocated a significant part of the GLC’s overall arts budget specifically in support of projects by black and ethnic minority led arts organisations in London.
The GLC set an example by creating its own opportunities for black artists as part of the ‘London Against Racism’ year (1985), commissioning visual artists from Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities to paint anti-racist murals in areas where black communities lived, namely Brixton, Tower Hamlets, Southall and Notting Hill.
The chosen artists for the different areas were Lubaina Himid, Gavin Jantjes, Keith Piper, and Shanti Panchal, and each chose another black or Asian artist to work alongside them.
Shanti Panchal and Dushka Ahmed, Across the Barrier, 1985 (Lowood Street, Shadwell, Tower Hamlets)
Shanti was assisted by Dushka Ahmed for their project in Shadwell, Gavin Jantjes by Tam Joseph in Brixton, Keith Piper and Chila Kumari Singh Burman were commissioned in Southall, and Lubaina Himid and Simone Alexander in Notting Hill.
Parminder Vir, Head of the Race Equality Unit, explained the significance of these sites, “…they are areas that represent continuous struggle, against institutionalised racism, racism on the streets, and also the achievements of those communities in those areas.”
Panchal and Ahmed painting the Shadwell mural in 1985.
Panchal and Ahmed’s ‘Across the Barrier’ is the only one that remains to this day, located in Shadwell, East London. It was vandalised in the years after its installation. Speaking with Shanti in 2024 he said how he had offered to repaint it, but that the council felt that the overpainting was a political statement, and so it remained defaced.
There is a fantastic article on this mural by Hassan Vawda, Doctoral Researcher at Goldsmiths/Tate, is published on the ArtUK website.
The defaced mural, photographed by Tracey Jenkins
Keith Piper, a black British artist from Birmingham, was paired with Liverpool artist Chila Kumari Burman to undertake the commission to paint a mural for Southall. His design sketch in the GLC catalogue indicates the artists’ intention to commemorate various Southall organisations through references to historical events and demonstrations.
Chila Kumari Burman and Keith Piper, 1985
In the early 1980s Chila Burman was awarded a residency with Southall Black Sisters and Southall Asian Afro-Caribbean Arts Collective at their centre where, funded by the Greater London Council (GLC) It was while working here that Parminder Vir invited Chila and Keith Piper to paint the Southall Black Resistance mural.
There was difficulty finding a wall, so it was decided to paint the mural on boards. This would enable it to be done despite the limited room they had in the centre, and also an advantage as the mural could then be folded and transported to other venues, youth centres and community centres around Southall and make a greater impact. The artists began to collaborate on the themes and to outline the way these should be represented, using Chila’s experience and knowledge of the people and the issues in the area. “It was lovely – we worked so well together.”
The last days of the GLC was a period of excitement, with artists, performers and bands coming from all over the world. It was “a hive of political activity and the Arts!”
Piper and Burman with Southall Black Resistance Mural in progress
In the Late 70s, Gavin Jantjes began to make paintings, but “had never made a mural or painted on anything that I would call a mural.” He was invited by Parminder Vir and Paul Boateng at the GLC to create a composition for “a mural about South London, and the upheavals in Brixton.” When his design was accepted by the GLC he proposed that Tam Joseph should be his assistant to paint the mural.
Together Gavin and Tam consulted various groups in the area, particularly people – like Tam’s family - who had come from the Caribbean Islands to the UK at the end of the World War II.
The Dream, The Rumour and The Poet’s Song, 1985, Gavin Jantjes & Tam Joseph, Brixton
Gavin said, “All the various people we spoke to in the area, the guys on the street, the community leaders in the town halls, the people at the health and sports centre, the Carnival band groups, the local police, the church people. All of their ideas were somehow touched on, and I thought initially that this would be an impossible task, that there were too many things, but somehow we managed to get a bit of all of that into the design.”
There is a recorded interview with Jantjes on the For Walls with Tongues website. I cannot stress how fantastic a resource this site is…
Finally, Lubaina Himid, a campaigner for and curator of Black Women’s art, was paired with Simone Alexander, an artist studying at Byam Shaw School of Art, to work on this mural with an anti-racist theme for the Notting Hill area. This one has proved difficult to find good images of. If someone knows of any, or of any film of the murals being painted/completed I would love to see them.
Design for Unity, Freedom and Equality, 1985, Lubaina Himid and Simone Alexander, Notting Hill
In the original design, five black figures are striding forward under a banner marked ‘UNITY, EQUALITY, FREEDOM’, in a carnival procession or demonstration. Cut out text plays a significant role in this design. Raining from a raised umbrella marked with the word ‘JUSTICE’ refer to activist campaigns against unjust treatment of black British and Asian people by British State authorities. A figure wearing white has significant names of black activists, writers and politicians emblazoned on his clothes. This man appears to be kicking a dustbin, uncovering hiding policemen, who are attached by threads to the disembodied white hand of a puppeteer above them. Cut out text covers the dustbin, ‘police puzzle; puppets of the state; civil war; paid poodles of oppression; NF manifesto; the law; little white lies; repatriation’. The next figure, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a rallying call, ‘The Time Is Now’, reaches back with scissors to cut the puppeteer’s strings.
