Marina Warner
2026
This groundbreaking exhibition, curated by writer Marina Warner with Oli McCall and Roger Malbert and designed by Simon Costin, explores the art of storytelling. It examines its close relationship with the sense of home and belonging, as well as its vital role in times of upheaval and displacement.
Bringing together historic objects and images, alongside works by leading contemporary artists, the exhibition will introduce visitors to a different approach to storytelling, and ask, through a range of artefacts in different media, why do we tell stories and what do they achieve?
The Shelter of Stories will unfold in distinct sections, with each one focusing on a different aspect of storytelling.
The first will transport visitors to the sites where storytelling has traditionally taken place, from tales told by the hearth side and the campfire to puppet shows in the bustling city street. Works by South Korean artist Do Ho Suh (b.1962) and Lebanese artist Mounira al Solh (b.1978) will embody the title of the show, highlighting how stories can provide shelter, where fears can be faced, difficult subjects addressed, knowledge passed on, and hope kindled. An array of objects including puppets, masks, dioramas, instruments, and board games will display creative methods storytellers around the globe have used to breathe life into their subjects and reveal some of the many ways stories travel and enter our consciousness.
Subsequent rooms look at the function’s stories fulfil, socially and personally. These include confronting and overcoming dangers and monsters, imagining and entering other worlds, sharing wisdom and knowledge, coexisting with animals and natural phenomena and building collective solidarity and hope in times of difficulty. Works by artists including Paula Rego (1935-2022), Ana Maria Pacheco (b.1943) are among the highlights.
The role of story-making, in terms of fostering a feeling of belonging, forms the central theme of the show’s final section. Envisaged as a space for communion and creative expression, this part will consider the importance of building culture together, between locals and incomers, nationals and strangers. The exhibition draws on the Stories in Transit project – which began in 2016 in Palermo, Sicily, where many of those fleeing wars and famine arrive from different parts of the world.
27 January 2026, Chatter #1: Richard Wentworth with Roger Malbert, Rowan Moore and Marina Warner, Drawing Matter, 8 Smart’s Place, London, WC2B 5LW , 6-8pm
Drawing Matter’s 2026 Public Programme begins with the launch of Chatter, a new series of evening events in the archive. Chatter evenings are opportunities to gather and talk around drawings and objects from the collection chosen by an invited guest (or guests) on a theme or subject that interests them. The evenings are not lectures or formal talks, but open discussions; everyone is encouraged to talk to the drawings and to each other. We welcome participants from all backgrounds and disciplines who are interested in sharing an experience.
For Chatter #1, we have collaborated with the artist Richard Wentworth to select drawings and objects that relate to his practice and interests in haptic understanding, conjunctions of unalike things, materiality, and things in their time. Included in the selection will be several of Richard’s own works, brought into dialogue with material from the collection.
Format
Doors open at 18.00. At 18.30, Richard will give a short introduction to the selection and to his guests Roger Malbert, Rowan Moore and Marina Warner. Afterwards, everyone is encouraged to look at the drawings and begin chatting freely. The evening will end at 20.00, but you are free to leave at any time!
Purchase your ticket here.
7 February 2026, Meet the Storymakers, Compton Verney
Gather with friends and family for a day of stories, music and making, curated by acclaimed writer and mythographer Marina Warner.
Rooted in storytelling traditions from around the world, this special event explores how stories help us come together across generations, share wisdom and celebrate culture.
Experience fairy tale teller extraordinaire Ben Haggarty performing The Iron Man Kavad, explore the magic of the Arabian Nights with renowned author, Wafa’ Tarnowska, and create poetic collages with artist and poet, Sophie Herxheimer.
Plus live music from Celebrating Sanctuary, drop-in making activities and much more.
See more here
19 February 2026, Book launch: Dr Soody Gholami, ‘Unhomely England in Post-Imperial British Novels’, 6-8pm, Birkbeck Central
Marina will be introducing the book launch of Soody’s book, Unhomely England in Post-Imperial British Novels. The book investigates the nature of ‘home’ and nation in post-imperial British novels, which deal with the loss of Empire and its uncanny presence ‘at home’. It delves into histories of British colonialism, the ‘end’ of the Empire, decolonisation, post-Second World War nation-building, and devolution; all of which resurface in four selected novels of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: Marina Warner’s Indigo (1992), Caryl Phillips’s The Nature of Blood (1997), Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George (2005), and Zadie Smith’s NW (2012).
Gholami’s Unhomely England investigates the novels’ engagement with postwar government policies, specifically in the areas of social housing, the British Welfare State and the National Curriculum. Exploring the writers’ different depictions of home interiors, architectural features and British local landscapes, this book argues that post-imperial British novels continue to highlight racial, gendered and class inequalities that undergird domestic perceptions of belonging and national identity in post-imperial Britain.
More information here.
(SOLD OUT) 21 February 2026, Faversham Literary Festival, The Old Brewery Store, 3-4pm
Marina will be in conversation with Daniel Hahn for the Faversham Literary Festival on Saturday 21 February, discussing Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling. Tickets and more information available here.
3 March 2026, The Palestine Lectures: On Rage, Keynes Hall, King’s College Cambridge, 5.30pm
Marina will be giving the 2026 Anna Jameson Lecture, titled ‘Rachel Weeping for Her Children’: Memories of Massacre, Flight, and Refuge. The lecture will explore the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, and the representation of mothers in the search for safety. It will be fifty years since Marina published her study of the Madonna (Alone of All Her Sex: the Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, 1976); she will revisit the representation of the mater dolorosa, drawing on Anna Jameson’s work, paintings in the National Gallery, and contemporary women artists (Paula Rego, Kiki Smith, Marcelle Hanselaar).
Book your in-person tickets here. If you would like to attend online, tickets are available here.
30 March 2026, EXPeditions Book Club #2: Marina Warner’s “Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling”, 7 – 8pm (online)
Marina Warner will join us and answer your questions about her latest book SANCTUARY, in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi.
Sanctuary is an ancient right. It both promises and is a haven. It is a place of refuge and of freedom from harm.
With brilliance and erudition, the distinguished cultural historian Marina Warner teases out the principles that govern the ancient tradition of sanctuary. Crucially, she also asks, could a revived practice of sanctuary today offer security and a home for the displaced. This is a groundbreaking book which explores the principles that underpin the tradition of ‘sanctuary’. It was written alongside work with the Stories in Transit project bringing young refugees together with artists, writers and musicians in the UK and in Sicily to invent or reimagine stories and perform them.
Warner reflects on the ways stories address the worst experiences of humanity, and argues that the act of storytelling offers a salve, a route to a site of mutual interaction and understanding, a new place of belonging and conviviality.
You can buy the book on this link via Bookshop.org.
Register to join on 30 March, here.
13 April 2026, BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour
Marina joined Woman’s Hour to discuss an exhibition of Paula Rego’s drawings and works on paper at Victoria Miro (16 April – 23 May 2026). Listen back to the episode here – she joins the broadcast at around 45 minutes into the show.