The Ken Saro-Wiwa Rooms or KSW Rooms is a brand new museum that explores the life and multiple legacies of the writer, activist and global icon Ken Saro-Wiwa. Opening in November 2025 to mark the 30th anniversary of his tragic and wrongful killing, the Mangrove Arts Foundation will open the first phase of this ambitious project. KSW Rooms will occupy two out of three floors of the building he owned and operated from on Aggrey Road in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

KSW Rooms is a space that deepens and carries the legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa forwards in fresh and profound contemporary-art led ways. This is not just a space that revisits his activism. It is a space that asks deeper questions about what it means to be an activist in the 21st century today. It asks hard questions about martyrdom and collective responsibility. It probes indigenous and African environmentalisms. It delves into literature and poetry, uses food, music and humor to explore the themes that propelled him. Far from being a dry political space KSW Rooms is unapologetically magical. Deeply cultural. Leading you down emotional paths that challenge and inspire. That make you see the world around you and your place within it very differently.

On view this year will be:

A Forest of Flowers a stunning permanent installation inspired by and named after his book of short stories. The work features a living indoor forest and hypnotic sound installation featuring Ken’s own voice reading from his book and explores the question where do stories come from?

Where Were You? is a room featuring the stories of people around the world recounting the moment they heard about Ken’s death and the impact his death had on their life.

Karikpo Pipeline the celebrated five-channel piece by Zina Saro-Wiwa will be on display for the first time in West Africa. This is a work that questions power and the identity of Ogoniland asking is it defined by oil or by indigenous culture?

There will also be a rare chance to re-engage with Ken’s darkly hilarious newspaper column Similia published in the Sunday Times in the reading room also opening at KSW Rooms.

And there will be more video works drawn from a rich and partly unseen video archive of Ken shot in the year before his death by British filmmakers Glen and Kay Ellis. Over the course of the year there will be rooms opening that feature contemporary art takes on Ken’s hit TV show Basi & Company, rooms that explore the role and impact of the activism of Anita and Gordon Roddick of The Body Shop, commissioned pieces from Port Harcourt artists Johnson Uwadinma and Oliver Socrates Nenubari. The space will also be a chance to properly tell the buried emotional stories of all the families affected by the wrongful killings on 10th November 1995. Over the coming years there will be symposiums, listening events, readings, parties, publications, podcasts and lectures. There will also be the official opening of Simaseng Kitchen Cafe where delicious re-imagined local seasonal food and drink will be served to visitors.

This space will be the first time that Ken’s legacy will have been considered in its entirety, drawing connections between the journalist, the poet, the TV producer, the author, the activist, the politician, the nature lover, the music lover, the mentor and the business man. Where the spiritual and the political are considered alongside one another. KSW Rooms is a place that will inspire much thought, some tears but much joy and inspiration. A contemplative site that offers a warm and comforting space to deeply metabolize the pain, and the many meanings and lessons of his life and death. An important step that allows us collectively to plan for a new kind of future for the Niger Delta on a resolved and creative footing.

The Ken Saro-Wiwa Rooms opens on 12th November to the public, with openings of new rooms and events throughout the 30th anniversary year and beyond.

MAF wishes to thank The Roddick Foundation for their support for this project. If you would like to support please click on our DONATE page or email us on connect@mangroveartsfoundation.com