Currently on display as part of our current exhibition, on Sunday 23 October the plaque will be reinstalled on Leeds Bridge. The original blue plaque was stolen in a racist hate crime, just hours after it was unveiled on 25 April 2022.
With music, dance and poetry at The Tetley, discover the full schedule to celebrate the reinstallation below:
1pm Meet on Leeds Bridge
- Welcome from Cllr Jonathan Prior (Deputy Leader, Leeds City Council), Leeds Civic Trust and Cllr Abigail Marshall Katung (co-chair of the David Oluwale Memorial Association)
- Ian Duhig will read ‘Forced’, a poem for David Oluwale
- Dr Emily Zobel Marshall (co-chair, DOMA) will read her poem ‘He Returned (Remembering Oluwale)’
- Music from steel pan duo Caribbean Breeze
- Blue Plaque reinstallation
1.30–2pm Head to The Tetley
There will be a short break between programming with a chance to have some food and to see The Tetley’s current exhibition Hibiscus Rising: Creating a memorial for David Oluwale with Yinka Shonibare CBE.
- Nigerian food by Tunto’s Aroma
- Marcia, Sweet Treat Creator sells hibiscus cheesecake
- A chance to purchase DOMA merchandise (T shirts, books, pens, posters, maps)
- Music by DJ Fluid
2–3.30pm Speeches, poetry and music at The Tetley
- Performance by the Yoruba Heritage Dance Troupe
- Speech by Alison Lowe, OBE, Deputy Mayor of West Yorkshire
- Songs for David Oluwale: Singer-songwriter Ellen Smith leads the David Oluwale Choir in Ellen’s arrangement of the songs composed by Leeds United fans in 1972
- Poetry from Zodwa Nyoni, Ian Duhig and Abdullah Adekola
- Music from Des Hurley and Friends (Leeds Irish Arts)
- Poetry from Malika Booker, Chérie Taylor Battiste and Joel Leigh
- Singer-songwriter Dayuur performs his Afrobeats
About the exhibition
Hibiscus Rising: Creating a memorial for David Oluwale with Yinka Shonibare CBE will be open until 5pm.
A collaboration between The Tetley, DOMA and LEEDS 2023, the exhibition imagines the future of David Oluwale’s legacy in Leeds.
Hibiscus Rising: Creating a memorial for David Oluwale with Yinka Shonibare CBE centres around a maquette created by artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA as part of a proposal for a public memorial for David Oluwale. The proposed artwork, Hibiscus Rising, will stand at 9.5 metres high, and be located in Leeds’ Southbank next to the Oluwale footbridge on Meadow Lane.
