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The Living Memorial: (The Dissemination of Dangerous Ideas)

Visitors are invited to interact physically with the memorial in order to become more engaged politically with the issues Ken Saro-Wiwa dedicated his life to.

The starting point for this proposal is the fact that Ken Saro-Wiwa was a writer, who used the printed word to change the world. Remembering the past, this proposal gives people resources to take away to help them shape our common future.

1) Mobile Memorial (Printing Press)
The Mobile Memorial enables visitors to print their own copies of nine different posters celebrating Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life and work. Visitors will first experience the monumental presence of nine working printing presses in a row.

Approaching the Memorial, visitors will see on each press a different woodcut. Following the instructions on the press, and using paper provided, visitors can pull the roller over the woodcut to print their own copies of nine different posters. By printing the sheet, the text on the woodcut (in mirror writing) is revealed.

Each poster relates a different aspect of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life story. Quoting from his own writings, and incorporating images, each poster will examine an issue that touched Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life.

The nine posters deal with: protecting the environment, defending civil liberties, the role of transnational corporations, the global impact of the oil industry, the power of nonviolence, the position of the writer, the rights of indigenous peoples (focusing on the Ogoni), and the history of Nigeria. The final poster depicts the life and death of Ken Saro-Wiwa himself.

Visitors may print as many posters as they wish, to be displayed and used in their own homes and communities. Each poster leaves space for personal additions. For the activist, these are practical materials for grassroots campaigning, using Ken Saro-Wiwa’s story to continue his struggle.

POSSIBLE TEMPORARY SITES: British Library, London College of Printing, an old Fleet Street newspaper office, Westminster Abbey.

2) Permanent Memorial (Brass Rubbing)
Set flush into the pavement are nine bronze slabs side by side, like a row of tomb tops. Once again, this proposal invites visitors to interact, to make brass rubbings, and to take away their own copies of the images. The nine slabs have on their surfaces the nine posters in relief, now as positives rather than negatives: the writing, for example, is no longer mirror writing.

These bronze slabs are a link between the Ogoni tradition of fine bronzes, the British tradition of using bronze slabs for memorials, the London tourist tradition of brass rubbing.

POSSIBLE PERMANENT SITES: South Bank embankment opposite Shell Building, or St Martins in the Fields (which actively supports peace and justice issues, and is famous on tourist trail as a brass rubbing centre).

3) Not Just One Man
Ken Saro-Wiwa was part of a movement and also represented a people. For this reason this proposal has nine images in each phase, to remember Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other people he was hung with. A memorial that can reproduce itself indefinitely expresses the unstoppability of communities fighting against injustice.

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Emily Johns

Download Emily's full proposal here
(PDF 945KB)

Click on images below for larger pictures. Photos by Dave Lewis