The Sainsbury Centre asks 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?'
By: Communications
The series of exhibitions 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.
The season 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.
Sainsbury Centre director, Jago Cooper, said: “This series of exhibitions brings together some of the most inspiring artists and powerful artworks of the last few hundred years. The emotional power of art can help people empathise with the personal understanding of this most terrifying aspect of human behaviour. It is this emotional connection and what it reveals of humanity that goes to the heart of what it means to be human.
“The raw power of the artistic responses on display can hopefully help us find the answers we so desperately seek. In a world so fraught with violence, society needs a safe space to reflect on this fundamental question.”
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
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