The Kalabari hold different types of wakes for Christians and non-Christians. Church Ede is Sokari Douglas Camp’s memorial to her father, Chief Ngogo Obene George Douglas of Buguma, who died in 1984. Ede is a Kalabari word meaning “bed for lying in state”; church indicates the bed is for a Christian wake.

To the Kalabari, the greatest tribute one can offer someone upon his death is a brass bed. Deciding that steel was the grandest material she could work, Douglas Camp welded Church Ede in steel. Church Ede has two major elements: the bed and the mourners. The body is not physically present but is indicated by a depression in the bed. The mourning women, wearing headties, lace blouses and striped wrappers, stand at either side of the bed. Their hands, energized by electric motors, fan the body with handkerchiefs while the bed shakes, symbolizing the continuance of her father’s vital force in the afterlife.

Douglas Camp painted the canvas, which was stapled to a board in her studio, while she was welding the sculpture. Although the works compliment one another, the sketch is not a preparatory image, but expresses some of the ideas that did not come through in the sculpture.

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