📸 Hibiscus Rising in Aire Park: A Tribute to David Oluwale

Installed near the Tetley in Aire Park, a special new sculpture by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA pays homage to David Oluwale, the British Nigerian and Leeds resident who drowned in the River Aire on 18 April 1969 after being systematically harassed by members of the police force.

Hibiscus Rising has been commissioned by The David Oluwale Memorial Association (DOMA) in collaboration with LEEDS 2023: Year of Culture, supported by Leeds City Council to honour the life of Oluwale. DOMA’s mission is to offer a response to Oluwale’s story that returns to David’s hopeful start. It aims to help the city come to terms with its past, to improve its care for those who remain marginalised, and to promote compassion, cohesion, inclusion and social justice in Leeds.

Inspired by the hibiscus flower, a plant ubiquitous in Nigeria, this major new public artwork embellished with African-inspired batik patterns stands as a beacon of hope. It provides a place where people can come together and tells a story of reconciliation, healing and renewal for the city.

The vision of the sculpture is achieved through the implementation of a fractured landscape, ruptured ground that gives way to the growth of the sculpture from within. But the artwork does not end on the sculpture itself – fragmented paving, granite outcrops and striking planting helped frame the sculpture, creating an interesting and reflective setting.

David Oluwale was a British Nigerian who arrived in Leeds in 1949, aged about 19. He had stowed away on a Lagos cargo ship, in search of a better life. For 4 years he worked hard and enjoyed a sociable life with the other West Africans in the city. But in 1953 he was detained in a psychiatric hospital and he ended up sleeping rough for most of the 1960s.

His death briefly caused a national scandal but was mostly forgotten until the release of police files thirty years later. In 2007, the #RememberOluwale charity was initiated, dedicated to utilising the arts to stimulate a creative and hopeful response in the city of Leeds to the afflictions David Oluwale endured.

Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA was born in 1962 in London, England and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He lives and works in London. Shonibare’s interdisciplinary practice explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. He was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004 and was elected as a Royal Academician in 2013. Shonibare was awarded the honour of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2019 and received the Art Icon Award from Whitechapel Gallery in 2021.