In Conversation

with Rachel Kneebone and Marina Warner

at the Fitzrovia Chapel

7 February 2025
Roberts Institute of Art

Part of In Attendance: Paying Attention in a Fragile World

Doors at 6.30pm
Conversation 7pm to 8pm
Booking Essential

Join us for a lively discussion between exhibition artist Rachel Kneebone and celebrated author Marina Warner exploring how the key themes of In Attendance: Paying Attention in a Fragile World at the Fitzrovia Chapel connect to Kneebone’s and Warner’s practices.

From Kneebone’s intricate process of working with porcelain to Warner’s insights on the power of storytelling, this conversation offers a chance to delve deeper into the ideas behind the artworks and the exhibition.

There will also be the opportunity to hear Marina talk about a short story she wrote in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in the exhibition. The conversation will be chaired by RIA curator, Yates Norton.

This is one of three events taking place alongside the exhibition. You can also join us for a Panel Discussion on The Politics and Poetics of Attention (23 January) and an Evening of Music with Violinist Angharad Davies (30 January).

Book Here
Roberts Institute of Art

Rachel Kneebone (b. 1973, Oxfordshire, UK) lives and works in London. Her work addresses and questions the human condition: renewal, life cycles and the physical body. Working primarily in sculpture that embraces the unpredictable nature of its medium — porcelain — Kneebone focuses on ideas of movement and metamorphosis, transformation and suspension and the material manifestation of fluid physical states. Kneebone has stated that her work is 'concerned with inhabiting the body, what it is to be alive in the world'.

Roberts Institute of Art

Marina Warner (b. 1946, London, UK) is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, historian and mythographer, who works across genres and cultures exploring myths and stories. Recent work has focused particularly on the magic of fairy tales and the Arabian Nights, including Stranger Magic (2011), and Once Upon a Time (2014). In Fly Away Home: Stories (2015) she draws on mythic predecessors, translating them into contemporary significance. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious Holberg Prize and was also Chair of the judging panel for the Man Booker International Book Prize. She is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls, and Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London. In March 2017, Warner was elected as the Royal Society of Literature's 19th – and first female – president, succeeding Colin Thubron in the post. Her Forms of Enchantment: Writings on Art and Artists was published by Thames & Hudson in September 2018. In March 2018 she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy. She lives and works in London.

In Attendance: Paying Attention in a Fragile World

In Attendance: Paying Attention in a Fragile World at the Fitzrovia Chapel (8 January–9 February 2025) asks us to reimagine the idea of attention as a practice tied to compassion, curiosity and care. Curated by the Roberts Institute of Art, the exhibition presents a selection of paintings, sculptures and video by UK and international contemporary artists from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, including Etel Adnan, Phyllida Barlow, Miriam Cahn and Paula Rego.

Fitzrovia Chapel

The Fitzrovia Chapel, a Grade II* listed building and design of noted architect John Loughborough Pearson, is the chapel for the former Middlesex Hospital. Built in 1891 as a place of sanctuary, prayer and reflection for patients, their families and doctors and nurses, the chapel remains a space to celebrate cultural and life events, explore history, see an exhibition and to take a step out of the bustle of city life into the calm of its marble walls. It has more than 40 different types of marble and hundreds of stars in its gold-mosaic ceiling.

When the hospital was closed in 2005, the chapel was saved from demolition because of its listed status. It reopened in 2016 as a charity (the Fitzrovia Chapel Foundation) with one of its remits being for the promotion of culture and history for the community. The chapel runs its own cultural programme and is partnering with creative wellbeing charity Hospital Rooms for a show in spring 2025. The chapel is also hired by artists and galleries. These include the Stephen Friedman Gallery, TJ Boulting and Richard Ingleby Gallery.

Opening times:
Daily 11 am to 6 pm (closed Monday)
Sunday 12 pm to 5 pm
Free admission

www.fitzroviachapel.org
@fitzroviachapel