Bugs: Beauty & Danger

Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2020 has been cancelled

It is with regret that we have taken the very difficult but ultimately inevitable decision to cancel the 2020 Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

With the rapidly escalating health-crisis and with the safety of our audiences, staff and artists at heart, we have taken the decision that it is impossible for us to deliver the Festival this May.

If you have booked a ticket for the Festival, you do not need to do anything. You are entitled to a refund and we will be in touch soon. Please bear with us during this difficult time. If you have the capacity to make a donation of part or all of your ticket value, we would be extremely grateful – it would help ensure we’re well-placed to support artists and be able to present future Festivals.

Tickets for Anish Kapoor were booked directly through Houghton Hall, find out more here

Read more here

This exhibition celebrates the beauty and power of insects at a time of increasing threat to many common species. Seven international artists are showing work about bees, beetles, butterflies and moths, through drawings, paintings, film, etchings, installation, to explore some of their intricacy and wonder, but also some of the fears we experience when encountering them and the threats they face. Insects bug us – we fear their stings, we are annoyed at the holes they make in our clothing, we scream at their shiny carapaces, we suffer the germs they can spread. But these fears also contribute to their death and disappearance, caused largely by damage we are creating through the use of pesticides in farm, garden and home, and from the effects of global warming, and nuclear fallout.

This exhibition raises awareness of some of the attractions and fears around bugs. They are still very mysterious, there is much we don’t know about their survival, their habits, or even the extent of our interdependence with them. This means that there is still a lot that the public can do through careful observation, to appreciate their ways of life in relation to ours.

Featuring works by Nicola Bealing, Jeroen Elsinga, Claudia Fahrenkemper, Sarah Gilespie, Cornella Hesse-Honegger, Aurora Sciabarra, Alison Turnbull.