Telling our tales

30 October 2025, The Tablet

Saad Qureshi’s ‘A Handful of Paradise’ (2024)

HUGH PRYOR

The exhibition covers the props we use to tell stories – puppets, masks et cetera – as well as the way stories demystify and soften complex and scary situations,

Stories are humanity’s superpower: how we shape our narrative, how we package and interpret and frame the legacy of our forebears is the hallmark of what sets us apart. So it makes sense that this uniquely human attribute, that unites all human beings across geography and history, should also be our superpower when it comes to uniting us across the increasingly yawning human divides. This is academic Marina Warner’s thesis, and she plays it out superbly in “The Shelter of Stories” (to 22 February).

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