Art installation recreating a 1960s Caribbean front room with real keepsakes, part of the Windrush 78th anniversary celebrations at Watershed.
The Dominican Front Room is on display at Watershed throughout October, running until Friday 30 October. It's an art installation that recreates a 1960s front room, and you view it by peering through a walkway window into the space. The room is filled with real Caribbean keepsakes contributed by families who settled in Bristol, so it's built from actual objects rather than props.
In 1960s Britain, the front room was a particular kind of space—half domestic, half formal. It was where records were played and where families gathered on special occasions. For the Windrush generation, it was also a place for memories of home and a point of achievement and pride. That's the feeling the installation aims for: an intimate, nostalgic world you look into from the outside.
The work is part of a wider Windrush celebration across the city, marking 78 years since the Empire HMS Windrush arrived in Tilbury Docks in 1948 with 492 Caribbean passengers. They were the first wave of West Indian immigrants to the UK, and many made Bristol their home, though they often faced racism and discrimination rather than the warm welcome they'd been promised. The installation was curated by Sherrie Eugene-Hart, with support from former Black Police Officer Beverley Douglas.
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It runs as part of Black History Month 2026, and there's a screening to go with it: First Born Second: Voices of the Children of the Windrush Era, directed by Michelle Pascal and co-produced by Roger Griffith MBE. That's a documentary about the second generation of Windrush pioneers—the children of the people the installation is about. You'll find the front room in the walkway window at Watershed, on display until 30 October.
