Can We Stop Killing Each Other? exhibition series – Sainsbury Centre, Norwich
The Sainsbury Centre’s radical exhibition programme seeks to answer the most important
questions in our lives. The latest wrestles with one of the darkest and deadliest aspects of
humanity: Can We Stop Killing Each Other?
The series explores the fundamental question of why humans are led to kill and how art, film,
TV and culture has grappled with, or even aggravated, our proximity to violence.
According to the Global Peace Index 2024, one hundred countries have been “at least
partially involved in some form of external conflict in the past five years, up from 59 in 2008”.
Can We Stop Killing Each Other? asks if creative thinkers, and the art they produce, can use
human empathy to create change – asking humanity to choose hope over violence.
The season of five exhibitions includes a monumental installation by Aotearoa/New Zealand
artist Anton Forde (Taranaki Māori, Gaelic, Geltacht, English) and a series of new paintings
reflecting on the refugee crisis by Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa; as well as presentations
of historical artworks such as Claude Monet’s The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil
(1872) as part of the The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour, and an exhibition spanning
Shakespearean tragedy to Hitchcockian spectacle, which asks how violent stage and screen
narratives can invite questions about our own morality, cultural codes and religious beliefs.
It is accompanied by a book, published by Kulturalis in September 2025, which features new
texts, including by British historian and academic Joanna Bourke and Michael Steedman,
deputy pro vice-chancellor Māori | Kaiarataki at the University of Auckland.
Featured exhibitions:
● Tiaki Ora ∞ Protecting Life: Anton Forde, 2 August 2025 – 19 April 2026
● Eyewitness, 20 September 2025 – 15 February 2026
● Roots of Resilience: Tesfaye Urgessa, 20 September 2025 – 15 February 2026
● The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour: Reflections on Peace, 20 September
2025 – 11 January 2026
● Seeds of Hate and Hope, 28 November 2025 – 17 May 2026
