artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition

the show examines how art has confronted genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

thomai tsimpou January 1, 2026 6 min

artists translate trauma through material, memory, and refusal

Until May 17th, 2026, the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, England, presents Seeds of Hate and Hope, an exhibition that brings together artists’ personal and political responses to some of the most devastating acts of violence of the 20th and 21st centuries. Set within the Centre’s wider investigative season titled Can We Stop Killing Each Other?, the show examines how art has confronted genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity through reflection, memory, and acts of resistance rooted in lived experience.

Seeds of Hate and Hope focuses on how artists process and translate trauma into form. The exhibition features works by Mona Hatoum, William Kentridge, Zoran Mušič, Peter Oloya, Kimberly Fulton Orozco, Indrė Šerpytytė, Gideon Rubin, and Ishiuchi Miyako, among others. Across different geographies and generations, these artists bear witness to conflict through strategies that include abstraction, erasure, material transformation, and symbolic gesture.

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 1 — Mona Hatoum, Hot Spot, 2006. Stainless steel, neon tube. Courtesy of the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. © Mona Hatoum. All rights reserved, DACS 2025 | image by Stephen White, courtesy of White Cube

Seeds of Hate and Hope positions art as witness

Key works featured in the exhibition include William Kentridge’s Ubu Tells the Truth (1997), which confronts the violence and injustice of apartheid-era South Africa through his distinctive animated language. Gideon Rubin’s Black Book (2017) systematically redacts every page of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, emptying the text of its ideological force while leaving behind a stark material trace. Ishiuchi Miyako’s photographic series documents everyday objects once owned by victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using absence and intimacy to register loss. Mona Hatoum’s Hot Spot (2006) presents a glowing, red-lined world map, a vision of a planet that, as Hatoum has described, is ‘continually caught up in conflict and unrest.’ Alongside these are bronze sculptures by Peter Oloya, whose practice is shaped by his experiences of violence and displacement during conflict in northern Uganda, translating personal history into tactile, enduring forms.

Curated by Tafadzwa Makwabarara, Curator of Cultural Empowerment at the Sainsbury Centre, together with independent curator, writer, and EMPIRE LINES podcast producer Jelena Sofronijevic, the exhibition frames art as both a witness to atrocity and a tool for healing. Drawing on individual stories and shared histories, Seeds of Hate and Hope explores how resilience and resistance often emerge under extreme conditions and how creative acts can counter forces of dehumanization, prejudice, and hate speech.

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 2 — installation view of Dante Elsner, 1985-1990. Copyright of the artist | image bu Kate Wolstenholme

Sainsbury Centre rethinks the museum as a space for empathy

The exhibition forms part of the Sainsbury Centre’s ongoing rethinking of the museum as a living, relational space following its radical relaunch in 2023. Seeds of Hate and Hope sits alongside four other concurrent exhibitions within the Can We Stop Killing Each Other? season, including Tiaki Ora ∞ Protecting Life: Anton Forde, Eyewitness, Roots of Resilience: Tesfaye Urgessa, and The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour: Reflections on Peace. Together, they ask whether empathy, creativity, and cultural production can meaningfully intervene in cycles of violence, and whether hope can be actively chosen over harm.

Supported by exhibition research funding from the Jonathan Ruffer grant from the Art Fund, Seeds of Hate and Hope underscores the Sainsbury Centre’s long-standing commitment to presenting art from across global histories and contexts on equal terms. Housed within Sir Norman Foster’s first public building, the museum continues to position art as a living force, one capable of helping societies confront their most difficult questions.

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 3 — Peter Oloya, Politrick, 2023 | © image courtesy of the artist and Pangolin London

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 4 — installation view of Peter Oloya, 1979-2023. Copyright of the artist and Pangolin London. | image by Kate Wolstenholme

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 5 — (left and middle) Ishiuchi Miyako, ひろしま/hiroshima#71 donor: Hatamura, T, 2007. ひろしま/Hiroshima, #102, #104, #113, #114, #115 Donor: Hagimoto, T, 2014. Copyright: Ishiuchi Miyako. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery. (right) Jananne Al-Ani, production still from the film Shadow Sites II, 2011. Copyright of the artist

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 6 — Ishiuchi Miyako, ひろしま/hiroshima#71 donor: Hatamura, T, 2007. Copyright: Ishiuchi Miyako. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 7 — Gideon Rubin, Black Book, Joseph Goebbels giving a speech, gouache on printed paper, (p.484), 2017. Courtesy of the artist

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 8 — Installation view of Gideon Rubin, Black Book, 2017. Copyright of the artist | image by Kate Wolstenholme

artists-trauma-mass-violence-form-sainsbury-centre-exhibition-designboom-large01 — Gideon Rubin, Black Book, Adolf Hitler covered over, gouache on printed paper (p.16), 2017. Courtesy of the artist

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 9 — Denzil Forrester, The Rose, 2014. Compressed charcoal, charcoal and graphite on paper. Copyright: Denzil Forrester. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. image by Todd-White Art Photography

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 10 — Installation view of Dima Srouji, She Still Wears Kohl & Smells Like Roses, 2023. Copyright of the artist | image by Kate Wolstenholme

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 11 — Zoran Music, We are not the last (Nous ne sommes pas les derniers), 1975, lithograph on paper. Courtesy of the Sainsbury Centre Collection. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 12 — David Cotterrell, Mirror IV: Legacy, 2015, video. © David Cotterrell, 2018. | image courtesy of the artist

artists respond to trauma, memory, and mass violence at sainsbury centre exhibition - 13 — Installation view of Sue Williamson, Truth Games, 1998. Copyright of the artist. Courtesy Goodman Gallery | image by Kate Wolstenholme

artists-trauma-mass-violence-form-sainsbury-centre-exhibition-designboom-large02 — Installation view of Rushdi Anwar, We have found in the ashes what we have lost in the fire, 2018. Copyright of the artist | image by Kate Wolstenholme

Installation view of Zoran Music, We are not the last (Nous ne sommes pas les derniers), 1975, lithograph on paper. Courtesy of the Sainsbury Centre Collection. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme Installation view of Gideon Rubin, Black Book, 2017. Copyright of the artist. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme Installation view of Jananne Al-Ani, Untitled, 1999. Copyright of the artist. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme Installation view of Indrė Šerpytytė, from the series 2 Seconds of colour, 2015. Copyright of the artist, courtesy Roberts Institute. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme Installation view of Dima Srouji, She Still Wears Kohl & Smells Like Roses, 2023. Copyright of the artist. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme

project info:

name: Seeds of Hate and Hope

venue: Sainsbury Centre | @sainsburycentre, University of East Anglia

location: Norwich, United Kingdom

dates: 28 November 2025 – 17 May 2026

curators: Tafadzwa Makwabarara, Jelena Sofronijevic,

featured artists: Mona Hatoum, William Kentridge, Zoran Mušič, Peter Oloya, Kimberly Fulton Orozco, Indrė Šerpytytė, Gideon Rubin, Ishiuchi Miyako