Above: fiona Courage (Special Collections Manager) and Dorothy Sheridan (Head of Special Collections and Research Services) with the specially commissioned chairs in memory of friend and collegue Sandra Koa Wing.
Below: A close-up of the commemorative plaque embedded in each seat.
A newly installed pair of seats in the Library will be a lasting and fitting memorial to a former member of staff.
Sandra Koa Wing was the Development Officer for the Mass Observation Archive from 2004 until her death in 2007 at the age of 28. The Archive, which is held in the Library, documents the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain.
With the funds raised by an appeal in Sandra’s memory, the Archive’s trustees commissioned two Brighton artists, Cath and Marcus Laffan, to create a useful and a beautiful tribute to Sandra’s work with Mass Observation.
A reception to unveil the carved oak seats, which have been installed on the top floor of the Library, was held on Thursday (1 May).
The Laffans have done other work for the University: the kissing seats on the ground floor of the Library, commissioned when an extension was built in the late 1990s, and the Mass Observation clock in the Special Collections reading room.
Thursday’s event was also the opportunity to celebrate the publication in March this year of a book edited by Sandra.
The anthology, Our Longest Days: A people’s history of the Second World War, is based on Mass Observation diaries and has been widely and positively reviewed. The Observer described it as “a unique attempt to tell the chronological history of the war, event by event, through the eyes of the diarists” and said it “should be recommended reading for everyone”.
Dorothy Sheridan, director of the Mass Observation Archive, said: “I am so pleased that Sandra was able to finish her work on the diary anthology for publication. It is a fitting testament to her commitment and affection for Mass Observation.”