The times in which we live are characterised by precarity and instability on multiple fronts, with major issues confronting society including climate crisis, global conflict, genocide, mass migration, and the violence of Western imperialism. ‘We Grown-Ups Can Also Be Afraid’ explores how work by some of the most significant artists of our era can help us respond to the anxieties of our contemporary world.

Drawn from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, one of the UK’s foremost private art collections, the exhibition encompasses sculpture, works on canvas, moving image and installation. The artists represented in the exhibition respond to these themes in very different ways, but their practices are connected by a sustained engagement with globally important issues that can often feel too big and too difficult for us to think about. They collect, build, stitch, carve, burn, staple, break and put back together many different materials to shape works that speak about their concerns.

This is not an exhibition about art and activism. The artists represented may not consider their work as a form of political activism – indeed, there is no sense that we are being lectured to or told what to think. Instead, it seems that we are being invited to direct our attention to something urgently important, to look more closely at the world as it is now.

The name of the exhibition, ‘We Grown-Ups Can Also Be Afraid’, comes from the title of the work by Nina Beier and Marie Lund featured in this exhibition. This title is itself taken from a 1978 song written by Bjarne Jess Hansen which he wrote in response to his then six year old daughter’s question about whether adults also get scared. The lyrics speak of threats, fear and the need to protect and preserve – a social commentary wrapped in an accessible melody, acknowledging the universal experience of fear and encouraging open discussion about it.

Art can help us to share stories, to reflect on individual and collective responses to conflict, to process the unimaginable and empathise with the experience of others. The works brought together in this exhibition may not provide an easy solution to the things that keep us awake at night, but collectively they ask: What does it mean to make art now? Do artists have a responsibility to respond to our contemporary moment? And what responsibilities do we have to sit up and pay attention?

The exhibition is curated by Rachel Graves, with support from Pamela Vivas, Visual Arts Officer, Attenborough Arts Centre. It has been selected from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, managed by the Roberts Institute of Art.

Participating Artists: Francisca Aninat, Fiona Banner, Phyllida Barlow, Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Huma Bhabha, Ayan Farah, Mona Hatoum, Jacco Olivier, Doris Salcedo.