When I think of a helmet in the modern day, I associate it with protection. Similarly, for thousands of years across various African societies, and other empiric societies like the Romans, the Akòtó (“helmet” in Yoruba, one of the official languages spoken in Nigeria) has been used in moments of celebration, funerals, weddings, coronations and spiritual rituals. But they have also long been associated with protection and survival in hostile terrains or in war.
In modern day Britain, the Akòtó takes on a different type of protection: psychological and cultural. It stands as armour shaped by centuries of culture to make the wearer appear non-threatening in an environment dominated by discussions about race and border regimes. For migrants, these “helmets” extend far beyond the physical object and instead embody strategy to allow movement through society and public life. The alteration of voice and accent and tailored emotional expression all to appear “safe”. But this comes at a cost. The parts that remain sealed off are often the most culturally resonant.
The Akòtó series, on exhibition at the Royal Engineers Museum in Medway, uses Formula 1 helmets as a canvas for memory, identity and displacement – a plea from the artist, Abolore Sobayo, to humanise migration and think about the people behind the statistics and figures.
“When people talk about migration, they always talk about the numbers. For me, it’s way more than that,” says Abolore. “This exhibition is an attempt to offer a human perspective to the people who may not know what we go through. This isn’t just about African migrants; it’s about all of us who come to these countries in search for a better life.”
In conversation with the artist, I realised that he and I had similar experiences. Though not a migrant myself, both of my parents are immigrants and, growing up, I can attest to the difficulties they’ve faced while living away from home and navigating an unknown environment. Both Abolore and my mother grieved the loss of a parent while living in an entirely different continent, my mother having to watch her dad’s funeral via Whatsapp.
This exhibition comes perfectly timed considering the changing migration patterns in the UK, as well as multiple far right individuals demonising what they would easily do if the roles were reversed and the UK wasn’t a “safe space” from conflict and turmoil. As of June 2025, net migration was 204,000, a decline from the peaks of 2022 and 2023. Of this figure, almost 70 per cent of non-EU immigration was for work and study. At the same time, 41,000 asylum seekers entered the UK via small boats, making the country the fifth highest recipient in Europe and not the primary destination for asylum seekers.
In Abolore’s work, the helmets are painted with symbols, patterns and images. All reflective of the experiences and realities that migrants may face when leaving their homeland to enter an unknown environment. According to Abolore, migrants learn early that public life demands legibility, practices that operate as both protection and discipline.
“For migrants, the helmet is to protect your cultural identity, while you are assimilating the new culture that you are coming into,” he said.
Understanding the helmets we all wear is vital to understanding migration in contemporary Britain. It reminds us that adaptation is rarely neutral but instead shaped by the legacies of empire. To recognise the helmet is to recognise the cultural cost of the necessity of movement, the need for resilience and the strategy of protecting oneself in an unknown environment whilst fighting to remain whole.
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All images © Abolore Sobayo