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From research seminars and public lectures to artists’ performances and reading groups, our Department is UEA’s central hub for events on visual art and culture.
World art research seminar
The Department’s main research forum is the World Art Research Seminar, which has run for over thirty years. As its name suggests, the Seminar embraces a broad conception of art’s histories and geographies, hosting invited speakers from scholars working in the fields of art history, anthropology, archaeology, curating, and many more.
The Martindale lecture
Every year since 1998, the Department has hosted the prestigious Martindale Lecture. Named in honour of a late member of our Department, the renaissance art historian Prof Andrew Martindale, the Martindale Lecture is given by a world-renowned expert in medieval and early modern art. Past speakers have covered many diverse topics in premodern art history, presenting on objects from Tabriz to Turin, and include among them Prof Sussan Babaie, Prof Neil MacGregor, Prof Hans Belting, Prof Paul Binski, Prof Bronwen Wilson, and Prof Sandy Heslop.
Norwich Works: The Industrial Photography of Walter and Rita Nurnberg
Norwich Works: The Industrial Photography of Walter and Rita Nurnberg (Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery 21/10/23 – 14/4/24). Curated by Nick Warr & Simon Dell. Norwich Works, one of the region's largest photographic exhibitions to date, celebrates the rediscovery of photographic portraits created by pioneering modernist artists Walter and Rita Nurnberg, depicting industrial workers returning to the city’s factories after World War Two.
Sea Inside, 2025
As part of the long-term collaborative research project 'Curating the Sea', Dr Sarah Wade (UEA Art History) and Dr Pandora Syperek curated the major group show Sea Inside at the Sainsbury Centre. Turning the romantic notion of the sublime and expansive ocean that is so prevalent in Western art history on its head, the show instead investigated how contemporary artists have examined their entangled relationships with the sea and the ways the oceans have been tamed, contained and brought indoors to be better understood.
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The Rule: Shaping Lives, Medieval and Modern
Together with art historian Dr. Jessica Barker, Ed Krčma is currently at work curating an exhibition, The Rule: Shaping Lives, Medieval and Modern, which will explore the ways in which medieval programmes for organising a different kind of life bear upon our present moment. The show is due to open at the Sainsbury Centre in May 2026.
Film Works: Artist Film in the Sainsbury Collection
This programme is a collaboration between UEA Art History and the Sainsbury Centre's learning team, bringing artists’ film and writing into dialogue with the Sainsbury Collection to engage with key issues in contemporary art and museum practice. To date, we have curated a series of themed events presenting work by artists and writers including Kate Morrell, Nashashibi/Skaer, Kenneth Anger, Al Anderson, Alberta Whittle, Ayesha Hameed and Hamedine Kane, and Phoebe Boswell with Liz Gre. Read a review of our most recent event here.
For more information about all of the Department’s events, check out our Instagram page here.
Wild Perspectives: Museum Late
How can thinking beyond human perspectives help us respond differently and responsibly in the face of ecological crisis? An evening of film, performance and music exploring creative approaches and new ways of understanding environmental breakdown.
This event was co-curated with Dr Sarah Wade and Sainsbury Centre Young Associates.
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