Ecstasy and the Aftermath explores the risks and rituals of falling in and out of love. Curated by guest curator Huma Kabakci, in collaboration with Vanessa Tothill, Curator of Transhistorical Narratives, it is on view at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, from 13 November 2026 to 11 April 2027 as part of the season How Do We Find Love?
The exhibition looks at relationships beyond the exhilarating early days and asks what is left after love has ended. Drawing on feminist politics and queer ecologies, it takes love not as romantic sentiment but as a political, mythic and collective force, and as a radical strategy for survival.
It unfolds across three sections. ‘Erotic Entanglements and Risk’ centres on falling in love, from Ithell Colquhoun’s Diagrams of Love (1940–41) to Chantal Powell’s new cast glass works Votives: Milk and Seed, made especially for the exhibition. ‘Loss, Grief and Growth’ turns to heartbreak, with works including Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait of P.L., no. 2 (1957) and İnci Eviner’s video performance Under One Body (2024). ‘Kinship and Chosen Families’ explores ways of loving beyond romantic pairings and biological kinship, in works such as Phoebe Boswell’s Ballad of the Spirits drawings (2025) and Judy Chicago’s Voices from the Song of Songs (1999–2000).
The exhibition grew from Kabakci’s own experience of loss and the slow rebuilding that followed. “Over the years, love is the question I keep returning to, personally, spiritually and professionally,” she says. “We are living through a moment of profound collective fracture and uncertainty, and I believe love, in all its forms, is one of the few forces capable of holding us together.”
Images: Ithell Colquhoun, The Tree of Veins, 1940–41. Copyright of the artist. Courtesy: Tate. Somaya Critchlow, Untitled, 2019. © Somaya Critchlow. Courtesy of the Artist and Maximillian William, London. Anna Perach, Venus, 2023. Copyright and courtesy of the artist. Blair Hughes-Stanton, Captivity, 1933, and Love’s Emancipation, 1933. Reproduced with permission of the Estate of Blair Hughes-Stanton. Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait of P.L., no. 2, 1957. © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved / DACS. Phoebe Boswell, Ballad of the Spirits (the river trembles before it becomes the ocean) and (a dance for broken lovers), 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Ben Hunter, London. Photograph: Jack Elliot Edwards