The Ken Saro-Wiwa Rooms, a new museum dedicated to the life and multiple legacies of Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, has opened in Port Harcourt, 30 years after his execution. Launched by the Mangrove Arts Foundation in November 2025, the museum occupies two floors of the building Saro-Wiwa owned and operated on Aggrey Road and takes an expansive approach to his life as a writer, poet, journalist, television producer, businessman and environmental campaigner. Rather than presenting his legacy solely through the history of his activism, KSW Rooms uses contemporary art, literature, music, food and environmental research to examine questions of environmentalism, collective responsibility, martyrdom and the future of the Niger Delta.
Among the works on view is A Forest of Flowers, a permanent installation inspired by Saro-Wiwa’s short-story collection of the same name. The installation combines a living indoor forest with recordings of Saro-Wiwa reading from his work, inviting visitors to consider the origins of stories and his relationship with nature. The museum will also present Where Were You?, an ongoing oral-history project by Rocio Cano and Simon Morris documenting people’s memories of learning about Saro-Wiwa’s execution, alongside Karikpo Pipeline, Zina Saro-Wiwa’s five-channel video work, which will be exhibited in West Africa for the first time. The Simaseng Research Cafe will further connect art, food and memory through Zina Saro-Wiwa’s Table Manners and archival footage of Ken recorded the year before his death.
The museum’s programme will expand throughout the year with exhibitions and rooms exploring Saro-Wiwa’s television series Basi & Company, his newspaper column Similia, the activism of Anita and Gordon Roddick, and the experiences of families affected by the 1995 executions. Mangrove Arts Foundation also plans symposiums, readings, listening events, publications, podcasts and lectures as part of an effort to create space for collective reflection on the legacy of the Ogoni struggle. Founded by Saro-Wiwa’s daughter, British-Nigerian artist and curator Zina Saro-Wiwa, the foundation describes its wider work as an effort to use art, food, research and environmental projects to regenerate the Niger Delta and rethink how the region’s history and future are represented. KSW Rooms is currently open to the public Wednesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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