A New Season For The Sainsbury Centre
In this interview, we spoke with John Kenneth Paranada,
the Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre – the first of the role in the UK.
A: Who are you, and what do you do?
K: My name is John Kenneth Paranada (most call me Ken) and I am the Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre.
In this role, I bring together exhibitions and partnerships that empower art to address the pressing ecological and social questions of our time. From curating exhibitions that respond to environmental, cultural, scientific, and ecological themes, to collaborating with scientists, communities, activists, academics, and artists, my work spans local and global landscapes. The exhibitions I curate offer an entry point into the most pressing questions we all face and the evolving climate stories that have become increasingly part of our daily lives.
I reckon that by experiencing and allowing the power of art to communicate complex climate issues, visitors can be inspired to take action in their own lives and communities.
What is something you’d love people to know about the Sainsbury Centre?
What I’d love people to know about the Sainsbury Centre is the depth and diversity we offer far beyond our exhibitions. We are more than a museum—we’re a place where art, nature, and community come together.
At the moment, we’re delighted to showcase The Reapers, a new site-specific series by Ivan Morison which sits in the Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park, created in response to our Why Do We Take Drugs? season. These sculptures, over four metres high, are crafted from East Anglia’s seasonal materials—hemp, straw, beans, and tomatoes, along with hay and coppiced timber from the Sculpture Park. These forms evoke the shape of haystacks, but unlike traditional sculptures, they will slowly change: their colours will fade, their structure will transform, grow, decay, and ultimately return to the Earth.
The Reapers emerged from Morison’s research residency Towards the Weird Heart of Things. The work engages with local farming communities, casting a revealing light on the agricultural sector’s dependence on drugs, fertilisers, and pesticides.
What has been your favourite part about curating for the new ‘big questions’ programming at the Centre?
I am currently curating A World of Water, set to open on 15 March 2025, as part of our Can the Seas Survive Us? season. A World of Water explores our species’ complex, often conflicted relationship with aquatic environments— a theme that resonates across disciplines, histories, and cultures. Working with a diverse, intergenerational group of artists—including Olafur Eliasson, Eva Rothschild, Josh Kline, and Maggi Hambling—has been profoundly inspiring. We have also forged partnerships including Mile Cross Community, Helgate Pottery, Norwich University of the Arts, the Fitzwilliam Museum, National Trust, Royal Academy, Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Norfolk Record Office and the Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life.
Through dialogues between artists, scientists, communities, and activists, A World of Water vividly brings the seas to life, presenting water as both a vital resource and a contested realm. One of the most profound revelations has been witnessing art’s potential to inspire critical thought and offer fresh, emotional perspectives on environmental challenges has been deeply moving.
Where’s your favourite place to visit in Norfolk and why?
Norfolk is a county of profound contrasts, and if I had to choose a favourite place, Cley-next-the-Sea would certainly be among them. Here, land yields to water in an ancient, graceful dance; vast, unbroken marshes stretch beneath an endless sky, while the wildness of the sea feels close and alive. Walking through the salt marshes, feeling the crisp coastal wind, and watching migratory birds find sanctuary here, I am reminded of the delicate interconnectedness binding us to these landscapes.
Norfolk’s coastlines possess an almost mythic power, each place speaking to the timeless cycles of life, death, and renewal that the sea has known long before our time.
Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia campus in Norwich.
@sainsburycentre / sainsburycentre.ac.uk
This interview was published as part of a paid collaboration within our printed newspaper.