LIVING BY THE RULE: CONTEMPORARY MEETS MEDIEVAL
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich
16th May – 10th October, 2026
Curated by Jessica Barker & Ed Krčma
With: Pavel Büchler, Andrea Büttner, Moyra Davey, Tacita Dean, Vivienne Koorland, Samuel Levi Jones, Susan Morris, Kate Pickering, Elizabeth Price, Ingrid Pollard, Alison Turnbull, Lucy Skaer, Christopher Stewart, Danh Vo, Richard Wright, Charlotte Zinsser
Living by the Rule: Contemporary meets Medieval reflects on the ‘rules’ that we live by today. Exploring the idea of routine and regulation, the exhibition vividly presents the richness and complexity of the dialogue between medieval experiments in a different way to live, and modern reflections upon how life is (and might yet be) organised.
Taking as its starting point the Rule of St Benedict, a deeply influential guide for communal living written in the 6th century, the exhibition brings together extraordinary objects from medieval monastic contexts with a fascinating selection of contemporary artworks. Medieval loans include the Hatton Codex, the earliest copy of the Rule of St Benedict in the world (c.700 AD); the Etheldreda Panels, one of only a handful of English medieval paintings to have survived the Reformation; and the Gorleston, Ormesby and Macclesfield psalters, some of the most important illuminated manuscripts of the 14th century. These are put in dialogue with important works by a range of international contemporary artists.
The exhibition is curated by Dr Jessica Barker FSA, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art History at The Courtauld and Dr Ed Krčma, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of East Anglia.
Featured contemporary artists:
Pavel Büchler
Andrea Büttner
Moyra Davey
Tacita Dean
Samuel Levi Jones
Vivienne Koorland
Susan Morris
Elizabeth Price
Ingrid Pollard
Lucy Skaer
Christopher Stewart
Alison Turnbull
Danh Vo
Richard Wright
Charlotte Zinsser
Plus a commissioned performance by Kate Pickering.
The exhibition is supported by The Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, Pilgrim Trust, Sam Fogg, Paul Mellon Centre, Idlewild Trust, The Leche Trust, Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, Kress Foundation, International Centre for Medieval Art, The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, A4 Arts Foundation, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
A new publication, Living by the Rule: Contemporary Art and the Medieval Monastery, co-authored by the exhibition curators Dr Jessica Barker FSA and Dr Ed Krčma, is published by Lund Humphries on 5 May 2026, alongside this exhibition.
The Benedictine Art Project and lecture series at Norwich Cathedral has been designed to complement this exhibition and sees newly commissioned work by three artists reflecting the Benedictine themes of healing and wholeness, hospitality and contemplative learning.
IMAGE: Andrea Büttner, Dancing Nuns, 2007, woodcut on paper, 180 x 113 cm
Accompanying a major show at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, this bold publication vividly explores the many unexpected resonances sounding between recent artworks and much earlier objects and texts.
Taking as their focus the Rule of St Benedict, a book written in the sixth century which provided monks with a framework for communal living, Jessica Barker and Ed Krčma invite readers to consider assumptions about contemporary life and how these beliefs might be unsettled by historical models, specifically medieval monastic life. Exploration of the rich material culture of religious communities of the Middle Ages throws up unexpected connections with contemporary art, and a reciprocity emerges, shifting our perspectives on both medieval and contemporary ways of life.
Including outstanding artworks such as the Arundel and Gorleston Psalters, and works in a variety of media by celebrated contemporary artists, Living by the Rule makes a compelling case for looking beyond the chronological tracing of art history.
Book launch of Living by the Rule: Contemporary Art meets the Medieval Monastery at The Courtauld, University of London, with Jessica Barker and Ed Krčma in discussion with Dr Caroline Levitt, Prof Michael Newman and Dr Nancy Thebaut.
Pages from the book Living by the Rule: Contemporary Art meets the Medieval Monastery, published by Lund Humphries, 2026
“The Sainsbury Centre show takes the eighth-century Hatton Codex, the oldest surviving copy of the Rule of St Benedict, as a starting point [and] reminds each of us that the way we choose to live is not the only way. Not only do other people live differently, but we too could — at any point — challenge our own, self-imposed, unexamined rules. History shows us that life can always be lived otherwise.”
—Marion Turner, Financial Times, May 2nd, 2026
“Susan Morris’s SunDial:NightWatch_Activity and Light 2010–2012, a work from 2017 [is] displayed as one of Living by the Rule’s sharp contemporary counterpoints. For three years, the artist used a Fitbit-style biometric device to record her body’s sleep/wake patterns and levels of light exposure; this data she then translated into the warp and weft of a jacquard tapestry. You see the nights of insomnia, days she’s travelled to New York, intermittent sleep patterns – all the chaos, fitful restlessness and spontaneity of 21st-century life – but still, arcing in great curves over all, as it did for the Medievals, there is the shape of the seasons…”
—Leyla Spratley, World of Interiors, May 30th, 2026
“Huge tapestries by Susan Morris record years of the artist measuring her sunlight exposure or waking hours. The final geometric works reveal a modern life just as regulated as those of her medieval counterparts…”
—Francesca Peacock, Apollo Magazine, June 4th, 2026
