Caroline Bergvall’s Raga Dawn is a mash-up of English, Punjabi and Romansh, poetry, music and performance art. She explains why she’s opposing ‘isolationist pride’ on the spot where the Empire Windrush docked in 1948
It’s 6.38am on Sunday morning and a crowd is gathered at the water’s edge. “Seek sunrise in all that we are,” incants a gentle voice. “Seek dawn in all that we do. Wake up. Wake up.”
What sounds like a yoga lesson on the beaches of Ibiza or Goa is far from it. Today we are at Tilbury international cruise terminal, 25km east along the Thames estuary from London Bridge. The same Tilbury where Elizabeth I addressed her fleet before they faced the Spanish Armada, and where the Empire Windrush passenger liner delivered 642 West Indian immigrants to a new life in Britain in 1948.
Related: The town that Bata built: a modernist marvel on the marshes of Essex
"Am I aware that I am asleep when I'm awake" @Cbergvall spins web of morning musing around wrapt audience #ragadawnpic.twitter.com/4zacZ5UuDi
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