In Living Memory

Last year, Lewisham residents were asked what stories about the borough needed to be told. Seven community-led projects were selected from around 70 expressions of interest. From this, ‘In Living Memory’ was born. The London Borough of Culture project, supported by Goldsmiths, aims to tell a new people’s history of post-war Lewisham and in doing so celebrate the diversity and heritage of our home borough.

Each project focuses on a different aspect of the borough’s recent past – from ‘Pioneers and Protest’, inspired by the 1981 Black People’s Day of Action, to ‘Where To, Now That The Sequins Have Gone?’, which will explore Lewisham’s lost gay venues of the 1970s–90s and the role of LGBTQ+ spaces today.

Project leads are undertaking primary research by gathering the memories of local people, receiving training and support from Goldsmiths researchers and creative practitioners along the way. Throughout 2022, these histories will be brought to life to transform public spaces across the borough and populate a new digital museum of Lewisham life.

Alumna Joy Prime (PGCE Design & Technology, 2011; MA Education: Culture, Language & Identity, 2021) is leading a project inspired by her mother, who travelled to London in 1963 as part of the Windrush generation. “Having spent all my life watching my mother make beautiful garments for family and friends, I felt something was missing from the fashion history I studied in school and university, because I never saw anything that represented her legacy,” Joy explains.

Joy’s project, ‘A Caribbean Couturier in Lewisham’, will explore the forgotten textile legacies of women of the Windrush generation through design collaborations, workshops and an immersive exhibition in Lewisham Shopping Centre that will take place during Black History Month in October. “My hope is to start a conversation within the community that reminds us of the value of the inspirational, resilient women and men who came to England to contribute to the post-war efforts,” says Joy. “Where they came from and what they brought with them should never be forgotten.”

Find out more about the project and how to share your memories of Lewisham at sites.gold.ac.uk/inlivingmemory

Right: Joy’s grandparents, Israel and Winifred Johnson. The dress worn by Winifred was one of the early pieces made by Joy’s mother, Sylvia Johnson- Prime-Holder

Above: Sylvia wearing her handmade wedding gown, which was reflective of the work produced by designer-makers of that era