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← David Oluwale Memorial Association

2024-03-31-accounts

The David Oluwale Memorial Association (DOMA)

11th ANNUAL REPORT 2023 — 2024

RememberOluwale www.rememberoluwale.org

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS
OBJECTS OF THE CHARITY
3
WHO WAS DAVID OLUWALE? 4
IMPACT 5
REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES 6
GOVERNANCE
Patron
Directors and Trustees
Advisory Committee
Partners
REVIEW OF WORK TO DATE 8
FUTURE PRIORITIES 9
PUBLIC BENEFIT STATEMENT
FINANCIAL STATEMENT 10

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OBJECTS OF THE CHARITY

The David Oluwale Memorial Association (DOMA) has adopted aims agreed with the Charity Commission. It aims to promote equality, diversity and racial harmony for the public benefit in Leeds specifically and the UK in general, in particular but not exclusively by any or all of the following means:

  1. educating the public about the life and death of David Oluwale

  2. educating the public on the progress the City of Leeds has made towards justice for ethnic minorities and humane treatment of the homeless and destitute, and in combating the stigma of individuals experiencing mental ill health

  3. educating the public on what more needs to be done to achieve full racial justice and humane treatment of the homeless and destitute in Leeds, and to combat the stigma of individuals experiencing mental ill health.

WHO WAS DAVID OLUWALE?

Insert photo of MV Temple Bar somewhere near here

David Oluwale arrived in Hull (East Yorkshire, UK) in 1949. With some friends, he had stowed away on the MV Temple Bar, a merchant ship docked in Lagos, Nigeria. He was imprisoned in Leeds (UK) for one month for the offence of not buying a ticket. Since he was a British citizen, he was free to make his way when he left prison. Like all migrants in search of a better life, he arrived with energy and ambition. He had various manual jobs until 1953. Despite gruelling work and racism, he seems to have enjoyed himself in the pubs and dance-halls of Leeds. He was known as Yankee by his friends, such was his love of American popular culture and his zest for life. This is the period of hope for David Oluwale.

After a dispute over the bill at the King Edward Hotel in Leeds city centre on 25th April 1953, he was arrested and sent to Leeds Prison in Armley. From there, he was dispatched to Menston Asylum, a psychiatric hospital in Leeds (later renamed High Royds). He was briefly released in 1961. In 1964 he was jailed for being drunk and disorderly, assessed as paranoid and a ‘dullard’, and sent again to High Royds hospital in 1965. Released in 1967, he lived as a vagrant on the streets of Leeds. He was last seen in the early morning of 18th April 1969, having been assaulted by two Leeds police officers. David was found drowned in the River Aire/Leeds Canal at the Knostrop weir on 4th May 1969.

While he was of no fixed abode (‘wandering abroad’ was his crime under the 1824 Vagrancy Act) and sleeping rough in the Leeds city centre over the last two years of his life, David Oluwale was persistently assaulted and abused by two Leeds police officers, Sergeant Kitching and Inspector Ellerker.

These officers were arrested following the brave whistle-blowing of a police cadet named Gary Galvin after David’s body was found. The investigating officer, Chief Superintendent Perkins of the Metropolitan police, recommended that they were charged with the murder of David Oluwale on 18th April 1969. Instead, they were prosecuted for manslaughter, ABH and GBH (Actual and Grievous Bodily Harm).

In November 1971 they were convicted of ABH. They were acquitted of David’s manslaughter and GBH on the Judge’s direction. Ellerker was sentenced to three years, Kitching got 27 months.

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There was much publicity of the trial in the local and national press. The artist Rasheed Araeen produced his work For Oluwale between 1972 and 1975. In 1974 Smiling David, the script of a BBC radio play by Jeremy Sandford, was published. Linton Kwesi Johnson referenced David Oluwale in his 1979 poem Time Come. Until two more books about David were published in 2007, by Caryl Phillips and Kester Aspden, his story was almost forgotten. In 2008, while speaking about David Oluwale at the launch of his book at Leeds Metropolitan (now Beckett) University, Caryl Phillips suggested that there should be a memorial in Leeds to David Oluwale.

INSERT PHOTOs AROUND HERE (David portraits)

Captions: A sculpture of David’s head made by the Leeds artist King Monk Portrait of David by Lilian (produced in the 2021 Locks to Legacies programme co-ordinated by DOMA Board member Asher Jael)

DOMA: EDUCATING AND CAMPAIGNING TO #REMEMBEROLUWALE

The David Oluwale Memorial Association (DOMA) started life in 2007 as a committee based in the Community Partnerships and Volunteering office at Leeds Metropolitan/Beckett University. In 2012 it was registered as a charity and as a company limited by guarantee, unaffiliated to the university. Its objects are listed above. It is now branded as #RememberOluwale.

In remembering David Oluwale, and in joining with all those who are working today to overcome all the challenges that David faced, the charity sees itself as restoring David’s initially hopeful trajectory. We recognise the improvements that have been made since David’s time in Leeds, but we argue that so much more is needed to properly address the ‘Oluwale issues’ in the city of Leeds: racism, hostility to migrants, mental ill-health, homelessness, police malpractice and destitution. We support Leeds City Council’s ambition to create a compassionate, inclusive and more equal city, where diversity is welcomed and everyone is able to fulfil their dreams.

Leeds City Council has supported our work since we set up the working party at Leeds Met University. It made a major contribution to DOMA’s work by backing the Hibiscus Rising sculpture for David Oluwale by Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA, recently installed in Aire Park in Leeds.

This art-work symbolises the creativity and energy that migrants bring to our city and the special place of remembrance that is being created exemplifies the city’s aim to embrace diversity and welcome everyone to Leeds. Fund-raising and technical matters for Hibiscus Rising was brilliantly managed by the LEEDS2023 Festival of Culture, and the sculpture is a major part of the legacy of that festival.

David’s life in Leeds started with hope and ended in abjection; DOMA aims to restore hope as Hibiscus Rising exemplifies the City of Leeds becoming a place that is fully inclusive. We always work with artists of every type to tell David’s story and to campaign for social justice with vivacity, creativity and enjoyment.

[Much more information about David Oluwale and the charity can be obtained from here on our website.]

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DOMA’S IMPACT IN THIS PERIOD

This report covers the charity’s activities over the period of 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2024. It provides the charity’s accounts up to 31st March 2024.

In brief, we organised and/or participated in the following activities:

Between February and April 2024, DOMA:

Insert a photo illustrating one of these things!

(Details of the above activities are provided below.)

We consider therefore that our impact has been to:

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REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES

Raising our profile:

We have kept our story in the public eye by regularly posting items of interest to our followers on social media. Facebook seems to be dropping in popularity, but our other social media platforms have seen reasonable increase in followers.

We also produced additional merchandise which we advertise on our website, use as gifts for supporters, and sell at events. Our merch now includes:

{INSERT graphic explaining the impact of hibiscus rising and merch photo — I have the PDF if you can’t find yours!}

GOVERNANCE

Patrons

Caryl Phillips, writer and Professor of English Literature at Yale University, USA became our Founding Patron in 2013. Phillips was born in St Kitts and grew up in Leeds. The third part of his book Foreigners — Three English Lives (2007) analyses David Oluwale’s life and death. He initiated the memorial to David Oluwale in Leeds when speaking about David Oluwale’s significance at Leeds Met University in 2007. CarylPhillips.com

Ruth Bundey, MA, became a Patron in February 2019. Ruth has lived in Leeds since 1969. Initially she worked for the Race Relations Board but soon became a solicitor. Her office in York Place merged with Ison Harrison on Chapeltown Road in 1993, becoming Harrison Bundey Solicitors.

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Ruth now works from the city centre representing families at inquests into deaths in custody and mental health detention.

Directors and Trustees

In March 2023 our Directors and Trustees were: Abdullah Adekola, Victoria Ajayi, Max Farrar, Asher Jael, Chloe Hudson, Emily Zobel Marshall, Abigail Marshall Katung, Peter Hindle-Marsh, Ellie Montgomery, Meleri Roberts and Mariam Sadikot. Full details appear here on our website ww.rememberoluwale.org

Volunteers and Consultants

There are lots of people who help DOMA’s work as Patrons, Board members, Consultants, Advisers, Partners and Volunteers and we are grateful to them all. We particularly thank the two consultants who gave us much support in developing Phase 1 of the Yinka Shonibare sculpture project: Pam Bone and Pippa Hale. LEEDS2023’s Sue Ball was very helpful in developing the early part of Phase 2 of this project (delivery of the completed sculpture).

Partners

We are indebted to these organisations, with whom we have had association and partnership arrangements and/or financial support over several years:

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REVIEW OF WORK TO DATE

Educational and Arts work 2023-4

Essentially, DOMA is an educational charity which takes a very broad view of education and doesn’t make a strong distinction between education and campaigning, and sees the arts as a key part of this process. (We see all our public events as both educational and change-making.) We are educationalists with a mission: to remind people of David Oluwale’s story, its relevance today, and to make links with all those educating and campaigning for racial and social justice, with special attention to mental health, homelessness and migration, while joining with all those who are eliminating malpractice in the police service.

Each of these events were developed and produced by DOMA, utilising funds raised by DOMA and by the LEEDS2023 Festival of Culture. The LBU module is funded by its School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

11th June 2023

Poets Rising workshop: held at The Tetley Centre for Contemporary Art, this afternoon workshop was led by two DOMA Board members, Abdullah Adekola and Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, both of whom have published poetry collections. About 25 people took part and each one began to work on a poem that responded to David Oluwale’s story.

12th July 2023

Poets Performing : Again held at The Tetley, at this event, open to the public, several of the people who attended the Poets Rising workshop performed their work.

20 Aug 2023

The Nice Up : Following a series of workshops co-ordinated by DOMA Board member Asher Jael, assisted by Leah Francis, young people associated with The Music House charity produced an open-air event on The Tetley forecourt which they titled The Nice Up. Having learned of David’s story they decided that the theme of of their musical performances would be good health and well-being. We hired the Leeds-based award-winning Grime artist Graft to provide the grand finale.

October - December 2023 : Educational work with Leeds Beckett University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. DOMA has worked with students in this school over many years. In their Black British Cultures module, DOMA Board co-Secretary Chloe Hudson worked with our volunteer Sophie Hardcastle to guide the students in producing a Zine which would tell David’s story in a format that would appeal to young people.

24-25 November 2023

The Grand Opening of Hibiscus Rising : The arts element included poetry from Ian Duhig, Joel Leigh, Emily Zobell Marshall and Sai Murray, songs from Daayuur, and performances by the Leeds Ibo Ladies and the Yorkshire Yoruba Heritage dancers and drummers. The educational talk was by Joe Williams (Heritage Corner). The history of Hibiscus Rising, and details of these events, are included in the Appendix to this report.

8th December 2023

Launch of Oluwale Now — An Anthology of Prose, Poetry and Artwork responding to the story of David Oluwale (Leeds: Peepal Tress Press, 2023). Edited by Dr Emily Zobel Marshall (DOMA co-chair) and Sai Murray (former DOMA Board member), the book assembles poets and short stories that resulted from an open-call competition, along with photos of all types of artwork that have been produced in response to David’s life.

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January - April 2024:

INSERT photos relating to the above

Community and Civic Engagement Programme 2023-4

19th April 2023

Hibiscus Rising Cultivation event at Leeds City Museum: DOMA Board members contributed to the event organised by LEEDS2023 to introduce potential sponsors to the Hibiscus Rising project

9th Feb 2023

Launch of the ‘Overlooked’ exhibition at Leeds City Museum :

DOMA Co-secretary Max Farrar had worked with Leeds Museum’s Youth Engagement Curator Jordan Keighley and his Preservation Party, a group of neurodiverse young people, on the David Oluwale section of their exhibition celebrating the lives and work of people often overlooked in public history (including non-binary, autistic, homeless and migrants). This section included the Hibiscus Rising maquette and lots of materials relating to David’s story.

10th September 2023

David Oluwale’s Leeds :

Two sessions led by historian Joe Williams and musician Juwon Ogungbe leading participants around Leeds in David’s footsteps. (More information in the Appendix.)

29 Sept 2023

Gala Fundraiser for Hibiscus Rising :

This joyful event, led by our co-Chair Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung, raised £15,000 towards the cost of Hibiscus Rising. Highlights included songs from The Music House Reggae Choir and Ellen Smith, and the young Irish-heritage dancers from Joyce O’Donnell School of Irish Dancing in Leeds. (Further details in the Appendix.)

25 October 2023

DOMA Annual Lecture and Panel :

Hosted for us by our friends in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University, this year’s DOMA Annual Lecture by Lord Victor Adebowale answered the question

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“Could there be another David Oluwale?” With a Yes. Informative responses to his lecture were provided by Arfan Hanif (CEO of Touchstone), Ali Swindells (Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) and Natalie Moran (Simon on the Streets). It was chaired by DOMA Board member Victoria Ajayi.

24-25 November 2023

The grand opening of Hibiscus Rising and its community engagement programme is described in the Appendix.

14th December 2023

Hibiscus Rising — The Legacy of David Oluwale : Having met Keith Fenton, one of the key volunteers at Chapel FM Arts Centre, at our poetry events in June and July, DOMA was invited by their CEP, Tony Macaluso, to make a radio show that would explain David’s life to their local community in Seacroft Leeds and its relevance today. We duly involved:

We showed a clip of Lord Victor Adebowale’s speech at the DOMA Annual Lecture and we engaged with the audience assembled at Chapel’s excellent auditorium while broadcasting to the whole world (including our friends in Germany, Switzerland and the USA). It was compered by Tony Macaluso and Max Farrar, DOMA co-secretary, who provided information about Hibiscus Rising. It was produced and archived by the staff at Chapel FM. The whole show is available on You Tube here.

24th February 2024

Leeds African Heritage Festival :

Over the past couple of years we have developed our partnership with the Leeds African Communities Trust (LACT), whose Vice-Chair is our Board member Victoria Ajayi (the chair is Abdul Rashid Thomas). With funding from LEEDS2023 a DOMA+LACT working party organised an afternoon and evening of activities involving many of the 15 African Communities in Leeds that LACT represents. About 400 people came to TJs on Woodhouse Street for a huge celebration of the creativity and culture of Leeds’s African communities. Twelve of the African Community groups had food stalls and the funding allowed us to produce a ‘pull-up’ banner for each nation to further promote their organisation’s work. Their performances were varied and exuberant with too many to mention them all, but they featured dance (including the Guinea Bissau Dance Group), music (including Dabie Simal, a Kizomba dance and singer Baba Galle Kent, a Fulani musician and Lara Rose, a British Nigerian artist) and poetry performances, together with a Gambian wedding ceremony and a fabulous fashion show organised by Like Choice Couture. Of course, our long -term supporters the Yoruba Heritage Group dazzled us with singing and dancing. The whole event was compered by Brooch Boggon and Lucy Nlovu with speeches by Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung, Abdul Rashid Thomas (all of LACT) and Max Farrar (of DOMA). This event helped us all to celebrate the arts and food of the many African communities in Leeds and to bring David’s story and Hibiscus Rising into the hearts of many more people.

Insert photos relevant to this section

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PRIORITIES FOR 2024-5

We will continue to organise events to raise the charity’s profile and to support educational and campaigning activities on all the issues that David Oluwale endured: mental ill-health, homelessness, racism, police malpractice and destitution, while always mindful of the current plight of migrants seeking settlement in the UK.

Specifically:

  1. We were delighted that our co-chair, Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung was elected to be Mayor of the City of Leeds for 2024-5 — the first African-heritage person who has received this honour! — but this means she will be on sabbatical from DOMA. Max Farrar is also taking a lower profile with DOMA now that Hibiscus Rising is in place. So we will make adjustments to the Board accordingly.

  2. A priority for this year is to secure permanent funding to employ a DOMA Project Manager from 2024 onwards. One fund-raising idea has been suggested by Detective Chief Superintendent Carl Galvin, son of the whistle-blowing Leeds police cadet Gary Galvin. It’s to organise a charity run in the name of David Oluwale. We will pursue this suggestion, while searching out other sources of funding for this much-needed post.

  3. Another proposal to pursue is to form a Community Interest Company (possible title ‘Friends of Hibiscus Rising’) with a specific focus on Yinka’s sculpture. Apart from involving volunteers in the maintenance of the gardens and the sculpture, such a company could ensure that the sculpture becomes more easily embraced by people who are blind or site-impaired.

  4. Our Business Plan 2021-4 raised the prospect of creating a David Oluwale Digital Cultural Centre. We will revisit this idea in the coming year and we will produce a new Business Plan for 2024-7.

  5. The current Business Plan commits us to organising:

  6. Events to animate the Hibiscus Rising site in the summer months. In conjunction with Leeds City Council’s Breeze programme with young people across the city, we will have the first of these events in September 2024.

  7. Occasional events with other organisations when suitable

  8. Further work with schools and other groups of young people (including FE and HE). We will prioritise the uptake of the educational materials we have now prepared for Key Stages 2 and 3.

  9. The DOMA Annual Lecture and Panel. We will book a high profile speaker for this event in November 2024.

We will prioritise these over the coming year.

PUBLIC BENEFIT STATEMENT

The David Oluwale Memorial Association promotes equality, diversity and racial harmony for the public benefit in Leeds based on the story of David Oluwale, and in this way complies with its duty as set out in section 4 of the 2006 Charities Act.

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APPENDIX

The History of Hibiscus Rising

Yinka Shonibare’s sculpture ‘Hibiscus Rising for David Oluwale’, a germ of an idea in 2007, was ceremoniously opened on 24-5 November 2023, thanks to the long-standing commitment of DOMA’s Board members, unstinting support from the Labour group at Leeds City Council, and highly professional project management by the LEEDS2023 Year of Culture team, working closely with DOMA’s Board.

Origins

The David Oluwale Committee started meeting in 2007. It was co-ordinated by Max Farrar who at that time managed the Community Partnerships and Volunteering Office at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU). The idea for a memorial to David Oluwale came from the writer Caryl Phillips, who grew up in Leeds and remembered David from his childhood. Professor Phillips had floated this idea at an event at LMU’s School of Cultural Studies, where he spoke with Dr Emily Zobell Marshall about his telling of David’s story in his book Foreigners — Three English Lives (Harvill Secker, 2007).

The original Oluwale Committee included representatives from the Nigerian Community Leeds, the Leeds West Indian Centre, the offices of both the Catholic and C of E Bishops of Leeds, and St George’s Crypt, the homelessness charity. We knew we needed the backing of Leeds City Council so we asked a friendly Conservative councillor, Anne Castle, if she would ask her Leader, Cllr Andrew Carter, if he would support our proposal for a memorial in Leeds to David Oluwale. Carter's answer was a very firm no. But we did get immediate support from the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police Service and the editor of the Yorkshire Post group of newspapers.

When the Labour Party won control of the council in 2010, we met with Cllr Keith Wakefield, leader of Leeds City Council, and John Thorpe, the City Architect. Yvette Smalle (West Indian Centre) and Max Farrar (LMU) asked for the council’s support in a project to create a “memory garden” for David Oluwale. We wanted it to include a sculpture of some sort. Cllr Wakefield agreed immediately and he and Mr Thorpe suggested we used a patch of unadopted land, close to the River Aire, not far from Leeds Bridge, which could become a gateway to the major development the council was planning for the south bank of the river. (This was to become Aire Park.)

Soon afterwards, Mahalia France, daughter of Arthur France MBE, chair of the West Indian Centre, joined the committee and she suggested that the sculpture, and the garden itself, should be appealing to families and children. We readily agreed, and we briefed BA (Hons) Landscape and Garden design students at LMU to produce plans for a garden with a sculpture that was awe-inspiring and didn’t replicate the conventional “bust of a great man” style of memorial. They surveyed the land suggested by Keith Wakefield and John Thorpe and went to work on their designs.

Insert photo of Anne Castle launching the charity around here

Early design ideas

We had found out that the abandoned land mentioned by Keith and John was owned by ASDA (it was at the edge of their headquarters’ site on Meadow Lane) and the company willingly assigned it to us, free, for the proposed garden. Max Farrar retired from LMU in 2010 so it was necessary for a charity and company limited by guarantee to be formed to take this project forward, and the David Oluwale Memorial Association duly came into being in 2012. Councillor Anne Castle, who had become Lord Mayor of Leeds, along with Martin Patterson, of St George’s Crypt and DOMA’s chairperson, launched the charity on a freezing night in January 2013 on the ASDA garden site at an event enlivened by Leeds Young Authors and The Baggage Handlers.

The LMU garden design students provided us with a range of options in 2014 and we selected the one we liked best. We then consulted Pippa Hale, then the co-director of The Tetley Centre for

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Contemporary Art, for advice on how to take this project forward. She involved the architect Simon Baker (Group Ginger) and his team suggested a new design for a larger site, incorporating the ASDA patch of land, which we thought might become available when the ASDA HQ was cleared for the proposed new HS2 train terminal. This proved unfeasible. By this time, the property development company Vastint plc had won the contract to develop the Aire Park plan developed by John Thorpe for Leeds City Council.

Insert design from LMU students

Yinka Shonibare

Pippa Hale then suggested we asked the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA if he would take a commission to design and build a sculpture for the David Oluwale Memorial Garden. Yinka Shonibare is a world-famous British-Nigerian artist based in London. His website says this about his work:

[Shonibare’s] interdisciplinary practice uses citations of Western art history and literature to question the validity of contemporary cultural and national identities within the context of globalisation. Through examining race, class and the construction of cultural identity, his works comment on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and their respective economic and political histories.

While his art is interpreted as critical of British colonialism, it often contains humorous and playful motifs, and is always bursting with colour (his use of Indonesian batik cloth is a key feature).

Max Farrar and Pippa Hale met with Yinka Shonibare and his team at his London studio on 3rd February 2017 and made a short presentation explaining David’s life in Leeds and setting out our request for a sculpture. We wanted it to exhibit Yinka’s trademark batik design style with his playful overtones — we asked for a sculpture which inspired debate and engaged with people of every background. We said we would like it to rise from water, symbolising the passage of migrants across the seas, to remind us that David was drowned in the River Aire. Very quickly Yinka said he would take the commission and he sent us a quick drawing of his ideas, which the Board readily accepted.

Insert Yinka’s drawing of Hib Rise

The Board felt that this was a fine expression of our suggestion that the place of memory for David would be a place of dialogue and conviviality, attractive to a wide variety of people of all ages, including children, referencing the vivacity and growth that migrants bring to the city of Leeds. The water feature would to remind us that migrants must cross (dangerous) water to reach the UK. It would also refer to a point made by our patron Caryl Phillips that Leeds is ‘a city on the water’: the River Aire and its canal helped make Leeds so prosperous in the 19th Century by transporting goods from the British Empire to the city from Hull or from Liverpool.

Vastint plc

We then started to meet with Valli van Zijl, the lead officer at Vastint for the Aire Park development. We asked if Vastint would be open to hosting a sculpture by Yinka in the open public space in the centre of the business and residential premises it was building to populate its Aire Park development. At a meeting on 11th July 2018 with DOMA and Yinka Shonibare, Valli enthusiastically embraced our proposal. She then secured agreement from Vastint’s Managing Director, Andrew Cobden. Vastint’s plan to site Yinka’s sculpture, near a water feature and a playground, in the open space near The Tetley Centre for Contemporary Art, was authorised by Leeds City Council’s Planning Committee on 3rd September 2020.

Insert overview of the Meadow Lane site

DOMA was delighted by this agreement, since the site was close to Leeds Bridge, which overlooks the point on the River Aire where David was drowned in 1969, provided access to the excel-

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lent facilities at The Tetley, and placed the sculpture adjacent to a water feature and a place where children would play, set among green space with benches where people could sit and talk. But Valli van Zjil, our champion at Vastint, had contracted pancreatic cancer in 2019 and we were deeply saddened to learn that she had died on 5th July 2020.

Nevertheless, DOMA pursued its flagship project. In addition to Pippa Hale, we employed the consultant Pam Bone to manage our fund-raising effort which rested upon the agreement with Yinka and with Vastint, and upon the planning permission granted by Leeds City Council. In the summer of 2020, thanks to funds from Arts Council England and LEEDS2023 Year of Culture, the Shonibare Studio was commissioned to make a maquette of the sculpture. The Covid pandemic slowed down the construction of this model, but it arrived in Leeds, along with a short film of it being made, in the Spring of 2022.

During this period, however, DOMA received the news from Andrew Cobden that Vastint plc would renege on its agreement to site Hibiscus Rising on its Aire Park development. At an explosive meeting on 22nd September 2021 Mr Cobden explained that he feared that the sculpture, and David’s story, would facilitate ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in Aire Park. Huge demonstrations under the hashtag Black Lives Matter had erupted all over the UK (and other parts of the world) after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on 25th May 2020. Two such demonstrations had been held in Leeds City Centre in June 2020. Mr Cobden said that Vastint would not take the repetitional damage that, he said, would ensue from an association between its business and the #BlackLivesMatter campaigns.

At the meeting with Mr Cobden, in the company of Leeds City Councillors and officers, DOMA’s co-chairs, Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung and Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, expressed their anger at his decision. Emily said Mr Cobden was adopting a stereotyped view of Black people and he misunderstood DOMA’s role. Cllr Abigail said that Leeds had welcomed her when she came here in 1999 and that, while history cannot be ignored, DOMA’s idea with this sculpture was to position David’s story in a more hopeful light. Cllr Debra Coupar, Deputy Leader of Leeds City Council, said that Vastint had been highly supportive up to this point and should recognise that the sculpture would help us to recognise our past and move forward in a positive spirit.

Hibiscus Rising in Meadow Lane

Mr Cobden would not shift his stance. Leeds City Council then rescued the project. It undertook the cost of putting new footings into the green space it was making opposite the ASDA HQ on Meadow Lane so that Hibiscus Rising could be installed there. This new site had the virtue of being close to the River Aire, and not far from the Leeds Bridge. While this new arrangement entailed losing the water feature and the proximity to the playground, DOMA was willing to accept a change to its original plan, and expressed its huge gratitude to the Council for stepping into the breach. Mr Cobden left Vastint in June 2022. Simon Schofield remained as manager of Vastint’s Aire Park development. Later in 2022, Vastint made a donation to DOMA of £10,000 to cover the additional fees charged by Pippa Hale and Pam Bone for their work in transitioning Hibiscus Rising from Vastint’s land to Leeds City Council’s. Their contract with DOMA had ended in May 2021.

The grant-aid from Arts Council England and the LEEDS2023 festival, plus £10,000 raised by DOMA, covered the consultants’ fees, and the costs of the maquette, a short film, and a community engagement programme. In the film (produced and directed for us by a to b films, a Leeds company) Yinka says his inspiration in choosing to make a hibiscus flower was his happy memory, as a child in Nigeria, of sucking the sweet juice of the flower. He imagined David Oluwale experiencing the same pleasure before he left Lagos. This artwork for David, typical of Yinka’s entire output, speaks to the possibility that there is a beautiful antidote to injustice. (Yinka Shonibare speaking about Hibiscus Rising , by a to b films, is available on our You Tube channel. Click on the link here.)

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In June and July 2022, DOMA took the maquette and the film to community centres in north, south, east and west Leeds and, using the World Café methodology, it organised consultative discussion events stimulated by David’s story and the Hibiscus Rising art-work. These events were facilitated by Saphra Bennett and Ruth Steinberg, proponents of the Art of Hosting methodology. It was very well received and the discussion stimulated wide-ranging reflections on David’s story and its relevance to contemporary issues of migration, racism, homelessness, mental ill-health and policing. The extensive feedback report, which includes ‘found poems’ by Ruth Steinberg and action-graphics by Jon Dorsett, was published on our website.

Insert photo of community consultation event

This film and other related exhibits, including Yinka's maquette of Hibiscus Rising, were exhibited at The Tetley Centre for Contemporary Art from 11th September 2022 to 8th January 2023. Vastint closed The Tetley in March 2024.

Hibiscus Rising’s maquette was transferred from The Tetley to Leeds City Museum where it, and David’s story and DOMA’s work, formed a prominent part of a prize-winning exhibition titled ‘Overlooked’, on display from February to June 2023. DOMA had assisted The Preservation Party, a voluntary group of neurodiverse young people co-ordinated by Jordan Keighley at the Leeds Museum, in their development of the Oluwale section of the exhibition. The maquette was then exhibited in a room of its own at Leeds Museum, along with John Dorsett’s graphic art setting out responses to the maquette that arose in DOMA’s 2022 community engagement programme. In 2024, Leeds City Council’s art gallery purchased the maquette with a grant from the Art Fund,and it now forms part of the city’s collection.

Hibiscus Rising, Leeds City Council and LEEDS2023

The adoption of the Hibiscus Rising project by LEEDS2023, backed by Leeds City Council, was critical to the creation and installation of this world-class artwork by Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA. The LEEDS2023 culture team undertook the fundraising for the manufacture and installation of the sculpture and DOMA’s community engagement programme, and it managed the liaison with the Shonibare Studio and the contractors who designed the space, prepared the groundwork in Meadow Lane, and produced the interpretation materials that surround the sculpture. While DOMA was closely involved at every stage, we relied on the expertise marshalled by L2023, underpinned by Leeds City Council.

Preparing the city for the November opening, in the summer of 2023 DOMA organised a series of events where David’s story was briefly told and the plans for Hibiscus Rising were set out. Most of these were held in and around The Tetley, just a few minutes walk from the Meadow Lane site.

These events were free, and open to all:

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a Nigerian meal, hibiscus cocktails, music from the Reggae Roots Choir (Music House), Irish folk dance and some (short) speeches.

Hibiscus Rising was installed in the last week of November 2023 and the opening ceremonies took place over two days. On the 24th November, compered by our co-chair Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung, VIPs were invited to The Tetley to

There were poems responding to David Oluwale from Ian Duhig and Joel Leigh, and a dance by the Leeds Ibo Ladies.

On 25th November, the public at large assembled at The Tetley, where there were workshops (batiq, hibiscus tea-making, Nigerian wraps , zine-making and poetry), an interview with Yinka Shonibare and a Nigerian food stall. Some had arrived at The Tetley after a short guided walk in David Oluwale’s footsteps led by Joe Williams. Then everyone assembled in the Meadow Lane Green Space where they heard poems for David Oluwale by Emily Zobel Marshall and Sai Murray. Songs by the British-Nigerian musician Daayuur, and drums and dancing from the Yoruba Heritage Group (Yorkshire) provided an exultant welcome to Hibiscus Rising.

Insert photos of events and Gav’s photo of Hibiscus Rising

Early in this process, DOMA’s Board set out its aims for the memory garden for David Oluwale. It will be a ‘place with a purpose’, where:

Already, we see this happening in Meadow Lane as people walk by, or make a special effort to visit the site. DOMA is now fund-raising to produce the arts and educational activities that will animate the Hibiscus Rising green space. Our major mission was accomplished in November 2024 after 17 years of steady work.

DOMA will continue in its educational campaigning work to remember David Oluwale and to join with others in properly addressing the issues that so damaged his life — racism, mental ill-health, homelessness and malevolent policing — simply because he took up his right to migrate from Lagos to Leeds.

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DAVID OLUWALE MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

Company Registration Number (England and Wales) 08107693 Charity Registration Number (England and Wales) 1151426

Abbreviated (Unaudited) Financial Statements

Period of Accounts:

Start date: 01 April 2023 End date: 31 March 2024

COMPANY INFORMATION for the period ending 31st March 2024

Directors

A Adekola V Ajayi M Farrar C Hudson A Jael A Marshall Katung P Hindle-Marsh E Zobel Marshall E Montgomery M Roberts M Sadikot

Secretary

M Farrar

Office address

8 Gledhow Park Road Leeds West Yorkshire LS7 4JX

Company registration number 0 8107693

David Oluwale Memorial Association Accounts for the 12 months to 31 March 2024

2024 2023
INCOME
Donations
Book & Other Sales
Grant Income
Event & ticket sales
Interest and Other Income
Total Income
38,924.61
1,314.64
37,050.00
7,516.42
1,237.57
86,008.00		 10,772.76
1,512.13
19,504.34
1,393.84
33,183.07
EXPENDITURE
General Events (including performance fees and prizes)
Merchandise for resale
Sculpture & Garden Project
Marketing, Brand and Website
Book Publishing Costs
Consultancy and professional fees
General expenses
Total expenditure
25,661.81
2,033.65
0.00
5,395.20
0.00
31,699.80
559.01
65,349.47		 4,915.08
409.41
11,335.23
727.81
0.00
21,474.00
672.74
39,534.27
BALANCE SHEET as at 31 March 2023
BALANCE OF INCOME OVER EXPENDITURE
ASSETS
Bank balance
Cash / PayPal balance
Total Assets being Bank and Cash balances		 20,658.53 (6,351.20)
48,030.57
3,180.21
51,210.78		 27,461.18
3,055.83
30,517.01
LIABILITIES
Current liabilities
0.00 0.00
Total assets less total liabilities 51,210.78 30,517.01
Represented by Total Funds 51,210.78 30,517.01

MOVEMENT IN FUNDS RECONCILIATION

Opening Funds
Income less expenditure in period
Closing Funds		 30,517.01
20,658.53
51,210.78		 36,868.21
(6,351.20)
30,517.01

Audit Exemption

Approved by the Trustees at the Annual General Meeting on 22[nd] June 2024

The David Oluwale Memorial Associa5on

Registered office:

8 Gledhow Park Road, Leeds, LS74JX, UK

UK Registered Charity No. 1151426 UK Company Limited by Guarantee No. 8107693 rememberoluwale@gmail.com rememberoluwale.org

CHARITY COMMISSION ANNUAL RETURN 2024

Audit Exemption

Approved by the Trustees at the Annual General Meeting on 22[nd] June 2024