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.

On Thursday 30 October, (2-3.30pm) Marina will be leading a tour of the exhibition. Book to join here!

Thursday 25 November 2021
Thinkers for our time: W.E.B. Du Bois, British Academy, 4-5pm, online event
Marina has been involved in curating a series of ‘Thinkers for our time’ events at the British Academy, with previous ‘thinkers’ including Charlie Chaplin, Sylvia Pankhurst and Christina Rosetti. This event focuses on the extraordinary life and legacy of polymath W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963). Du Bois stands as one of the most important and influential civil rights activists and intellectuals of the 20th century. As co-founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and author of the seminal book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois’s profound writings and analysis of race and racism continue to shape the way scholars think about these issues today. Speakers include Professor Hakim Adi, Professor Paul Goodwin and Professor Sharon Monteith. Chairing the event is Jonathan Derbyshire. Book to learn more here.

13th December 2019
2019 Choix Goncourt du Royaume-Uni
The Higher Education, Research and Innovation Department of the French Embassy in the United Kingdom and the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, in partnership with Académie Goncourt, organise the Choix Goncourt UK for students in British universities. Some 100 students from seven universities around the country took part in the first edition in 2019. They convened in reading groups to discuss books from the Académie Goncourt shortlist, then sent two delegates per university to London to discuss, debate and choose (in French) the one that would receive their Prize. The Choix Goncourt UK 2019 was awarded to Jean-Paul Dubois for his book Tous les hommes n’habitent pas le monde de la même façon. The proclamation took place at the Residence of the French Ambassador, HE Catherine Colonna, and the jury was presided by Marina Warner. Read more here

1st May 2019
2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
Books by three writers from Trinidad and Tobago have made the shortlist for the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, sponsored by One Caribbean Media. The final cross-genre judging panel for the prize, chaired by the celebrated writer Marina Warner, includes poet Geoffrey Philp, scholar and writer Jane Bryce, and journalist and editor Gary Younge.

2019
Marina helped to commission ‘Luminary Drawings Portraits of Film Directors by Nina Mae Fowler‘, National Portrait Gallery, 12 April – 1 October 2019
This display unveils a major new commission of portrait drawings of leading film directors by the artist Nina Mae Fowler (b.1981). Each director was depicted whilst watching a film of importance to them; intriguingly their film choice is not revealed. With their faces illuminated only by the light of the screen, Fowler took several stills of the directors and made preliminary sketches that formed the basis of the final pencil and charcoal drawings. The intimate scale of the works draws the viewer into the minds of the people behind the lens, conveying the inspiration felt by the directors when watching great cinema.

15th November 2018
Thinkers for Our Time: Goethe, at the British Academy
Thinkers for our time is a series re-thinking the life and work of influential figures from across the Academy’s disciplines, particularly history and the arts. This is the sixth in the series, following events exploring Sigmund Freud, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Malthus, Sylvia Pankhurst and Charlie Chaplin.

May 2015
2015 International Man Booker Prize
Innovative Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai was announced as the winner of the sixth Man Booker International Prize at an award ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, of which Marina Warner was on the judging panel along with Elleke Boehmer, Nadeem Aslam, Edwin Frank and Wen-chin Ouyang.

2013 Warwick Prize for Writing
Along with Professor Ian Sansom of the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick and Professor Ed Byrne, Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, Marina was in the judging panel. The coveted £25,000 prize, run by the University of Warwick, was launched in 2008 and is awarded once every two years. It stands apart from other literary prizes as an international cross-disciplinary biennial award, open to substantial pieces of writing in the English language, in any genre or format.

2006-2012
John Florio Prize for Italian Translation
Judge for the biennial award of £2,000 for translations into English of full length Italian works of literary merit and general interest.