When the Windrush scandal began to surface after 2017, Zinzi Minott was struck by how the country seemed to fall silent. In the first days after the news broke, she says, people and institutions were too afraid to speak up. “No one did anything quick enough, it was really ugly,” the London-based artist recalls. “I was like: ‘I can’t watch this. I can’t not say anything and carry on like this is OK.’”
In response, Minott created Fi Dem, a six-minute film that splices archival footage from the arrival of the Empire Windrush with home videos of her family. It’s a tribute to those affected by the ongoing injustices, including her late grandmother who arrived from the Caribbean and worked as an NHS nurse. “The community I’m from and the people that raised me sacrificed a lot,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that these people were acknowledged. It felt like if I didn’t say anything, nobody else was going to.”
