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London's Cultural Landscape
Refining Memory
The Shortlist
Open Call for Ideas (Now Closed)

Artists should be at the centre of society keeping alive a utopian vision, because society will not improve if the people envisioning a better society are politicians.
Peter Sellars

The role of the artist in society is critical to communicate the injustices experienced daily by people. Art provides political expression beyond rhetoric, propaganda, and action, inspiring those formerly untouched by an issue to become engaged.

As the tenth anniversary of the executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight colleagues approaches, and a decade of empty promises fades in the Niger Delta, a wide coalition of organisations and individuals has gathered to ensure that their courageous struggle will never be forgotten.

Many in Britain are unaware of how our consumption of oil relates to the suffering of communities elsewhere and those that campaign for justice.

Remember Saro-Wiwa is launching a unique public art initiative – the Living Memorial – dedicated to Ken, his colleagues, and the issues that they fought and died for. It will be Britain's first ever mobile memorial, moving from site to site over two to three years, while at the same time planning for a permanent home.

The Living Memorial will not be a monument to a finished episode but an initiative that highlights to London – the seat of government and a major oil industry centre – the living reality of the struggle for social and environmental justice in lands upon which we depend.

The Living Memorial will inform, agitate and inspire, and claim its space in the landscape of multi-cultural Britain. Britain’s civic spaces are overwhelmingly dominated by centuries of conventional monuments to aristocracy, empire and the military: the significant contributions of people of colour are currently appallingly under-represented in our cultural landscape. The Living Memorial will help to redress this imbalance.

An international process of open submissions will invite inspiring ideas for the project. A shortlist of five proposals, selected by a panel, will be exhibited in the run-up to 10th November 2005. Alongside the Living Memorial will be a two-year interactive programme, which animates the whole process through talks, workshops, publications, and the website. As the Memorial moves from site to site the programme will move with it.

The Living Memorial has local, national and international significance, a project that connects and communicates, provokes and consoles, remembering the past, but shaping the future.

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