Rudy Loewe’s arresting mural The Congregation sits above the entrance to Brixton Underground station in London. The large-scale painting highlights the people and places that have shaped the area’s history over the last 75 years. It serves as a gateway into Brixton’s past and present for locals and the estimated 22 million passengers that transit through the station every year.

The Congregation is the ninth artwork in the Art on the Underground mural programme since 2000, and has been commissioned specially for Brixton tube station. Loewe is a multidisciplinary artist who blends painting, drawing and sculpture to bring aspects of history to life, unearthing histories through archival research and interviews.

Using bold and colourful imagery, the mural captures the rhythm of the everyday, showing myriad scenes, from intergenerational families to civic resistance. The viewer can move between scenes to form their own unique narrative with the mural. In some ways, it acts like a living family album for the local community.

Situated in south London, Brixton began as a wealthy Victorian commercial hub and is best known today as the symbolic heart of the UK’s Caribbean community. In 1981, the oppressive use of “Operation Swamp 81” and “sus” (suspected person) laws........

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