Latest News
22 JanuaryNew Perspectives Podcast
New Perspectives is a new podcast series from the Sainsbury Centre. For each episode of the podcast, we have invited an artist, writer or researcher to share their own reflections and interpretations of the Sainsbury Centre Collections.
Episode 01 with Martin Mahony
Martin Mahony is a lecturer in human geography at the University of East Anglia. His research focusses on the history of atmospheric science and technology, and on the politics of climate change. Martin has chosen to talk about a pair of Snow Goggles from Alaska in the Sainsbury Collection.
Be a Sculpture Star
During lockdown the combination of art, architecture and nature in our 350-acre Sculpture Park became a much-needed space. Whether for relaxation, creativity or exercise, the great outdoors has proven essential for physical and mental wellbeing in this challenging time.
As a direct response to Covid-19 restrictions, the Sainsbury Centre offered support to organisations tackling the needs of vulnerable neighbouring communities. So far, we have helped:
– Teachers and pupils in local schools with a bird themed activity pack, helping them explore art in the natural environment.
– Local care home residents, who were unable to receive family visits, were driven around the Sculpture Park to see and enjoy the artworks.
– Children on a summer holiday programme run by the Henderson Trust, Norwich Food Bank and Cadge Road community, with nature-based creative activities relating to the Sculpture Park.
– A-Level Art and Design students, providing them with resources themed on site-specific sculpture.
– 100 families who enjoyed hands-on art activities in a monthly outdoor family programme.
As lockdown lifts once more, this inspiring environment continues to be an important resource for education, entertainment and wellbeing.
Our challenge is to reach 250,000 people through Sculpture Park projects and to populate the area with exciting new artworks. Through these, we can create stimulating and supportive programmes for local communities.
We have achieved some funding for an extensive new art and the environment project, which will have significant social impact. However, we still need to raise at least £15,000 in the next few weeks to enable us to bring new works into the Sculpture Park.
Your generosity enables us to develop exciting opportunities that help local organisations and bring new artworks into this free-to-enter space.
Anti-Racism Statement
The Sainsbury Centre is committed to addressing racism in all areas of our activity. The Centre was founded in 1978 to house, in equality, collections from around the world and to develop research into diverse cultures. We are committed to extending this founding mission.
We aim to become a more inclusive organisation whose collections, programming, learning activities, digital engagement and research is relevant to contemporary ethnic minority audiences both in the region and beyond. We aim to promote scholarship that explores the significance of race, gender and class, and to actively ensure that diversity and equality are key principles of the institution.
We aim to be a more inclusive organisation through our governance, staffing, artist community, visitors, members, patrons and online followers.
Actions:
– Develop and support an anti-racism working group to make recommendations to the Executive and Board.
– Ensure all areas of activity from our exhibitions, displays, research, fellowships, residencies, learning and digital engagement are diverse and inclusive.
– Continue to work on publishing provenance information for all objects in the collection.
– Work with groups in the community to develop projects for diverse audiences.
– Develop a policy on Restitution.
– Work with colleagues across the University towards decolonising the institution, its collection and programmes.
– Continue to diversify the collection through acquisition.
– Diversify our Board and work force.
– Support ethnic minority career progression through internships and other opportunities.
– Introduce Anti-Racism training.
MBE for Board Member
Congratulations from all of us at the Sainsbury Centre to our wonderful Board Member Laura McGillivray, on receiving an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to local government. Laura served as Chief Executive of Norwich City Council for 14 years, before standing down last year. She is one of our longest serving board members, and has supported us unfailingly over the years. Her expertise and enthusiasm has been vital to the Centre’s strategic direction over the last decade.
Cristina Iglesias
Internationally acclaimed Spanish installation artist and sculptor, Cristina Iglesias, presents two major sculptures. This free Sculpture Park display, on view from 14 November, places Iglesias’ work in dialogue with Norman Foster’s iconic Sainsbury Centre building.
Celosía XI (Hafsa Bint Al-Hayy) (2006) consists of seven terracotta screens that evoke the lattices in Arab architecture. Iglesias co-opts their traditional geometric patterns by incorporating words into the structure of the screens. Passing through the enclosures is akin to reading passages of text. The title refers to the celebrated Andalusian poet Ḥafṣa bint al-Ḥājj ar-Rakūniyya (1135–1191).
The immersive installation Vegetation Room III (2005) is a defined architectural space. The interior walls are casts of organic vegetation. The combination of natural and architectural elements complements the aims of the Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park: to bring together art, architecture and the natural environment.
Anish Kapoor at the Sainsbury Centre
We are is delighted to announce a new free East End gallery display of two alabaster stone sculptures by Anish Kapoor: Involute, 2017 and Untitled, 2010. This is presented as part of a major exhibition on show across the grounds and historic interiors of Houghton Hall.
The two alabaster works that Kapoor has selected to show at the Sainsbury Centre have been created through the carving process of negative space into positive form; they demonstrate Kapoor’s interest in the void, of deep dark space and the interior state of the object. They will be displayed in the central bay of the East End gallery until January 2020.
New additions to the sculpture park
Two stunning new sculptures have arrived at the Centre by renowned artists Phillip King and John Davies. You can find out more about the works below:
Sun’s Roots II, Phillip King, 2008
Sun’s Roots II returns to King’s earlier works where formally the use of bold colour to define space and the cone are a grounding element. King has often connected the sun to the ground, and the title of the work indicates the importance of this gesture to the artist. King spent a great deal of time in Japan working in a ceramics studio, and Japanese mythology was influential to King’s production of this work.
Supported by Ivor Braka Ltd, Thomas Dane Gallery and Hudson Architects
Head, John Davies, 1997
In the late 1990s, John Davies introduced monumental heads to his practice. For Davies, the development of this extreme scale provides new opportunities to explore how the human figure may be perceived and how one can relate to it differently. The minute figures within the monumental heads are intensely detailed and so endow the viewer with authority, as the figures are inspected. This head has a serene expression, at once in harmony and at peace in its natural surroundings.
Supported by Hudson Architects
Major works by Elisabeth Frink acquired
We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of 29 new sculptures, drawings and prints by Elisabeth Frink, following the wishes of her son Lin Jammet. This comes after Frink’s popular exhibition Humans and Other Animals back in 2018/19. This significant body of work will enable us to become a permanent study centre for the British artist.
– FIND OUT MORE IN THE ART NEWSPAPER –
Art Deco by the Sea exhibition featured as BBC iPlayer special
Although the exhibition might be over, a 15-minute film of our highly successful Art Deco by the Sea exhibition will be available to view on BBC iPlayer until March 2021. It is part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine initiative which was designed to bring the best of arts and culture into the homes of audiences during lockdown.