The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Published to accompany the ‘Can We Stop Killing Each Other?’ season of exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk:
2 August 2025–19 April 2026
Tiaki Ora ∞ Protecting Life: Anton Forde
20 September 2025–15 February 2026
How Can We Stop Killing Each Other?
Eyewitness Roots of Resilience: Tesfaye Urgessa
The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour: Reflections on Peace
28 November 2025–17 May 2026
Seeds of Hate and Hope
https://www.sainsburycentre.ac.uk
First published in 2025 by Kulturalis Ltd 14 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP United Kingdom www.kulturalis.com
ISBN 978-1-83636-014-8
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Page 2: Judy Chicago, Double Jeopardy, 1992, sprayed acrylic, oil and photography on photo linen, screen printing and fabric on photo linen, silk and embroidery. Photo courtesy of Judy Chicago / Art Resource, NY
Jago Cooper 6
1. Art as Life and Death
Jago Cooper and Tania Moore 16
2. The Art of Violence Joanna Bourke 24
6. Art as Sanctuary: Reflections on Claude Monet Elizabeth Elliott 68 Foreword
3. A Grim Fascination: Watching Others Kill Vanessa Tothill 36
4. Papare Eighty.one as an Expression of Mana Michael Steedman 48
5. Caught Between Worlds: Painting Across Boundaries
Tesfaye Urgessa in conversation with John Kenneth Paranada 56
David Cotterrell, Mirror IV, 2018, as installed at the ‘Empathy and Risk’ project, Ubumuntu Arts Festival, Kigali, Rwanda
Foreword
Jago Cooper
What more important question can there be for humanity than ‘Can we stop killing each other?’ From interpersonal violence to statelevel conflict, killing has spread its devastating impact throughout all human cultures across the centuries. Why does this violence occur? And can it be better prevented at a time when increased societal pressures of population growth, resource scarcity, human migration and rapid environmental change make the risk of conflict higher? Every day we read about horrifying acts playing out locally and internationally, but what is the answer to stopping them? Art and material culture are perhaps some of the most powerful mechanisms by which to connect people to the visceral realities and human stories behind this existential question. In bringing together different cultural perspectives and lived experiences, this book – and the accompanying exhibitions – may enable you to empathise with, or at least better understand, an aspect of human behaviour that can sometimes seem so inexplicable; examining the motivations for behaviours and the shifting ridgeline between perpetrator and victim.
The fluidity and fragility of that ridgeline is powerfully exposed in art, not least in Mirror IV (2018) by David Cotterrell (b.1974), a video work that plays out two facing monologues written for children of the Rwanda genocide. On one
side is the child of a killer, on the other, the child of the victim they killed. Yet the words spoken, emotions felt and the traumatic experience both have inherited highlight how hard it is to tell which is which. This work exposes how the inherited trauma of violence plays down through generations on both sides of a conflict; how the seeds of future conflict or, alternatively, the seeds of resilience can be sown, depending on how people live with the aftermath.
Those seeds of resilience, the ability to cope with trauma yet find peace and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, are so important to explore and understand. Painting, as artist Tesfaye Urgessa (b.1983) and curator John Kenneth Paranada explore in their conversation for this book (p. 56), is often ‘a critical act of witnessing and capturing the scars of conflict’, yet it is also a living embodiment of the emotional conflict that endures. Artworks endure. They have the ability to take the intensity of a moment of violence, situated within a complex historical cultural context, and play out that same moment throughout time. The changing relationship between viewer and artwork captures how attitudes, ideas and interpretations of that moment can play out culturally. Terrorists turn into freedom fighters. National heroes become murderers. And consensus over which is correct can change in an instant as people
Can We Stop Killing Each Other?
Tania Moore
‘Can we stop killing each other?’ To simply ask this question is to probe the fundamental nature of humanity itself. It leads us on an existential journey to the heart of the human condition and the darkness, or light, that lies therein. Evidence of interpersonal violence and organised warfare spans human history, but is there a way we can learn from these stories, change how we think and build navigable pathways to peace?1 At the time of writing, there are 114 armed conflicts taking place across the world.2 This represents the most countries at conflict since the Second World War, which ended some 80 years ago, itself the greatest period of human violence and loss ever recorded.3 With this current escalation in violence and rising global instability, can we find new ways to understand, empathise and imagine an alternative landscape planted with the seeds of hope?
The Sainsbury Centre believes that art can help us respond to the most challenging questions facing society, evoking emotions that lead to new knowledge and encouraging us to think more deeply and see things from new perspectives. Can art therefore give us the tools and inspiration to face this interminable question? Can art catalyse empathy and foster peace as we find new ways to build more harmonious relationships across this planet?
The commanding artwork Papare Eighty.one (2024) by Anton Forde (b.1973) and Shiree Reihana (b.1961), not only commemorates a horrendous event of the past but also calls for a future of peace across humanity. Forde was inspired by the courageous response of the pacifist Māori community at Parihaka on 5 November 1881. The community, who had settled in Parihaka in 1866, were the last to hold onto their land as colonial rule displaced people across New Zealand. In 1881, knowing an attack was imminent, their leaders instructed the villagers to greet the military with peace. Despite being faced by despicable violence, no one was killed as they had been in other villages – a fact that Forde credits to their refusal to fight back. The community, their courageous way of life and their response to threat went on to be influential on international leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) and Martin Luther King Jr (1929–1968). Michael Steedman’s chapter in this publication demonstrates the power that art can have in reflecting and restoring Māori values.
At the Sainsbury Centre, Forde and Reihana’s installation, Tiaki Ora ∞ Protecting Life, opens with a Māori carving representing an ancestor housed in the Sainsbury Centre collection. Behind this, 80 figures carved by Forde, each over 2 metres in height, stand in a protective formation. At their heart is a smaller figure,
Anton Forde and Shiree
Reihana, Papare Eighty.one, 2024, Australian hardwood, feathers, textile and pounamu/jade
Art as Life and Death
Tania Moore and Jago Cooper
Artists offer an insight into their own inner worlds as well as the inner workings of society. Artworks have the power to illustrate the most complex of thoughts and the most challenging aspects of how societies both come together and fall apart. Art can confront the viewer with ideas and imagery that are hard to receive. It can also offer a calming space of tranquillity within which to reflect upon the most disturbing aspects of human behaviour.
The reason for violence within human society has been the subject of debate for as long as societies have existed. Understanding whether we are predetermined as a species to kill each other – that it is in our nature – or whether, with culture, we can overcome these animal instincts, is to begin to understand what it is to be human.1 Certainly, studies of the past reveal how pervasive violence has always been in human societies. In many ways, the complexity of human culture, and the personal relationships it creates, is what gives us so many different motives for violence. Jealousy, ambition, love, reputation, ownership and differing beliefs are just a few of the many reasons that drive people to blows. What is truly interesting is how different societies have created rules and mechanisms to try to control and regulate how these aspects of society can be arbitrated. The causes and controls are embedded within the complexity of human culture, yet their variety and
difference across the world and over time is what makes this such an endlessly fascinating, crosscultural topic to explore. Cultures are different and yet every one of them has produced art. These artworks not only capture the realities of killing within that society, but they also embody the cultural rules, accepted norms and social arguments for justifying the relative rights and wrongs of doing so.
According to both the Qur’an and the Bible, the first murder between two humans was that of Cain killing his brother Abel, as an act of jealousy. The presence of violence and death within the foundations of the Church serves to highlight the common relationships between death and the essence of the beliefs that people live for. Christian imagery is known to have existed since 200 ce, but it wasn’t until the ninth century that icons were formally supported, and Christian art began to proliferate. In churches and cathedrals, the combined power of architecture, sculpture, painting and craftwork were intended to move the viewer emotionally and morally. The killing of Jesus Christ is one of the most prevalent artworks in the world, materialised in paintings, altars and personal adornments for more than 2,000 years. What this killing represents is more than a murder, more than state-sanctioned capital punishment; it is a narrated act of self-sacrifice that defines a religion
Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1606–7, or 1609–10, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome
A Grim Fascination: Watching Others Kill
Vanessa Tothill
There are very few certainties in life, but death – our own death – is one of them. We do not know when, where or how death will find us, but we can be certain it will. In the past, elaborately choreographed forms of sacrifice – human and animal – were performed before an audience both for the pleasure of the gods and to benefit the living.1 This use of a scapegoat not only redirected misfortune away from the self, but also served to refocus a community’s shared existential anxieties about death onto the mortal body of another. Is it possible that the violent narratives found in contemporary forms of art and entertainment, conceived for stage and screen, are secular translations of ritual sacrifice?
The dramatic treatment of homicide in art invites sober reflection on the unfortunate constellation of actions and emotions that lead to the taking of another’s life. These violent narratives can serve as cautionary tales that encourage selfmastery, moderation and tolerance, but they can also provide us with the sadistic thrill (or cathartic release) of witnessing the suffering of others. Research is still ongoing as to whether exposure to violent imagery provides a harmless imaginative space for the working out of innate aggression and fear, or if it acts as a stimulus for real-world copycat violence.2
Through an examination of video works by artists Bruce Nauman (b.1941), Wael Shawky (b.1971) and Kara Walker (b.1969), this text considers how historical modes of performance, such as glove, string and shadow puppetry, are being used to create new meaning in contemporary narratives around killing. Exploiting the potential for puppetry to awaken empathy and self-awareness within the viewer, Nauman, Shawky and Walker use the puppet as a metaphor, or proxy, for human life when confronting the troubling subjects of physical assault, misogyny, religious intolerance and racial hatred. Collectively, they ask what the dramatisation of violence reveals about our society, its viewing habits and its cultural constructions of virtue, justice and vengeance.
From slapstick to domestic violence
The figure of Punch was based on the seventeenth-century Italian commedia dell’arte character, Pulcinella, who was introduced to England by itinerant Italian players after the Restoration of Charles II (r.1660–85). Pulcinella morphed into the defiantly violent and satirical Punch and Judy show, which was enjoyed for its irreverent humour and rejection of the ‘civilising’ constraints imposed by early modern society –
Gus Wood and Acme Whistles, Collapsible Punch and Judy booth with puppets and accessories, c.1912. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Papare Eighty.one as an Expression of Mana
Michael Steedman (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei)
E tika ana te kōrero, ‘He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.’
This whakataukī (far-car-toe-key), or proverb, is often interpreted as follows: ‘What is the most important thing in this world? Tis people, tis people, tis people.’ It is a whakataukī often communicated in order to represent the importance of people’s contributions to their communities, disciplines and broader society. It acknowledges that humans have an important role to play in making their own lives better through recognising each other’s inherent dignity. In Māori culture, this means acknowledging a person’s whakapapa (genealogy) and, in particular, their mana (mah-nah).
Acknowledging one’s mana is an important aspect of the traditional engagements in Māori culture, and there are various ways this is expressed. Mana itself is not a straightforward concept to describe. In the dictionary, it is defined with words like ‘prestige’, ‘authority’, ‘influence’ and ‘charisma’. Mana is often regarded as being held by those in leadership roles or having expertise in a certain field. It can sometimes be transferred through whakapapa (fah-cah-pah-pah), but more often it is recognised through contribution, effort and the resultant regard in which a person is held. Each of us has mana, and the extent to which it
is recognised by others depends on our actions and the context in which it manifests. It also acknowledges a connectivity, to history or to an idea, that resonates strongly with people.
The question of ‘Can we stop killing each other?’ is an important one to unpack. An acknowledgement of one’s mana isn’t a guarantee of civility, but it is an acceptance of a fundamental approach to recognising one another in that way. The work of Anton Forde and Shiree Reihana has mana. And the artists themselves have mana, in part because of their expertise, but also for the story they convey in their work Papare Eighty.one (2024). They show the ability to weave together different important historical moments, and to hold certain value-based positions, so we can learn from what they have learned.
Note to reader: some key words are written phonetically to assist with pronunciation.
Anton Forde and Shiree Reihana, Papare Eighty.one, 2024, Australian hardwood, feathers, textile and pounamu/jade
Caught Between Worlds: Painting Across Boundaries
Tesfaye Urgessa in conversation with John Kenneth Paranada
What happens when painting becomes a witness to war and migration? In this conversation, Tesfaye Urgessa, artist in residence for the ‘Can We Stop Killing Each Other?’ season, speaks with John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre. Together, they explore Urgessa’s artistic influences, diasporic perspectives and lived experiences within the season’s curatorial theme.
For Urgessa, painting is more than a visual language – it is a critical act of witnessing and capturing the scars of conflict, the realities of displacement and the environmental crises reshaping our world. His work moves fluidly between figuration and abstraction, drawing on the emotional depth of Lucian Freud (1922–2011) and the visceral intensity of Francis Bacon (1909–1992), while interrogating themes of identity, war, diaspora and belonging.
JKP: To start, how would you describe your artistic practice to someone encountering your work for the first time?
TU: On the surface, I would describe it as figurative painting with abstract elements. Visually, that’s what most people first notice. But when it comes to content, I always try to portray the human being with all its characteristics: behaviour, identity, everything – what makes us human. Society puts humans into categories to try and understand them; I try to undo the work that society is doing. I aim to represent the complexity of human existence without labels.
JKP: That’s intriguing. Could you share a little about your background and what inspired you to become an artist?
TU: I was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My father, by chance, met a local artist, and he was so inspired that he began teaching himself how to draw and paint in watercolour. When I was around ten years old, I would look at my father drawing and painting and that sparked my own interest.
Tesfaye Urgessa, Mother and Child, 2025, oil and graphite on paper
Tesfaye Urgessa, No Country for Young Men, 31, 2024, oil on canvas
suffering 24, 27–8, 31–2 of others 36 and strength 15, 59
Tāne-nui-a-rangi 52
Tiaki Ora 12–14
exhibition 4, 70
tikanga 51–3
Torfinn, Sven 28, 30
Portrait of Jannet 28, 30
Toyohara Kunichika, theatre print 10–11
Urban II (pope) 43
Urgessa, Tesfaye 21, 56–67, 70, 77
Get Going 64–5
Mother and Child 57
No Country for Young Men 9, 59, 60–61, 63
Roots of Resilience 70
values 39, 44
Christian 20
Māori 12, 50
victim and perpetrator 7–8
viewers 7, 15, 16
as voyeurs 21, 32, 47 of violence in art 16, 24, 28, 32
