Welcome to our
Annual Review 2020/21

Forewords

Sir Nicholas Kenyon
Managing Director, Barbican Centre (until September 2021)

What a lot can happen, or not happen, over twelve months. Last year at this time, I reflected on the challenges of the enforced closure of the Barbican, which began in the middle of March 2020. Who would have imagined that with only brief windows of limited reopening, closure would have continued right through the period of this review to April 2021, and was only beginning to be lifted in May 2021. It has been a time of devastating loss for the country as a whole and the creative sector has been hit especially hard. Not only has it been hugely frustrating for audiences, but also for our artists and staff who have had to work in isolation from each other without the community of support that is the lifeblood of the Barbican and the wider sector.

However, we have learned a lot, we have achieved a great deal, and we continue to rise to the challenge. Some change has been driven exponentially by our new needs. We can be particularly proud of the way that all Barbican departments have responded to the potential of digital distribution, creating a blended offer for our audiences. To take just one example, our music programme’s new series Live from the Barbican managed to deliver both live-streamed events and, when permitted, live events for a socially distanced audience. What is notable is the way in which the experience was transformed for those at home. This was not just a camera pointed at a stage, but a reinvention of the visual look of our concerts across the genres that will have a permanent influence on how we think of staging and relaying events in the future.

In welcoming limited audiences back to the Barbican, it was very important for us to ensure that they felt safe and secure in the way we managed the building and the activity within it. Those measures helped us achieve exceptionally high levels of satisfaction among our visitors, and we will continue to proceed with caution and ensure safety.

Another vital outcome of the lockdown period has been strengthening our relationships and work with local communities in our immediate vicinity and in east London. The launch of our Communities in Residence programme provided free space at the Barbican for local community organisations to run activities and workshops. We have made our Conservatory available to visitors free of charge, using this unique and welcoming space as a much needed local City oasis. The Barbican collaborated closely with Culture Mile to distribute many thousands of play packs to families and children, providing entertaining, stimulating activity for use at home during this period. These new partnerships and offers have helped us develop our work and better utilise our spaces, and we’re planning to continue growing these models, building on the outstanding achievements of our Creative Learning department over the last decade.

All aspects of our work during these trying times have shown how vital it is that we adopt a much more radical approach to equity, diversity and inclusion. In common with many arts organisations, we have recognised the increased challenges to and deep questioning of established modes of operation. We are part of a systemic problem and we have not done enough over time to address these issues in our organisation and in our sector. One key example is a long overdue need to provide progression routes for a diverse staff that really reflects London today. We are recognised for the diversity of our programming, and while this success is born out through the make-up of our audiences, it is delivered by a workforce that does not yet reflect our ambition. This we are committed to change as part of a wide-ranging new action plan.

The pandemic and its unprecedented effect on our society has placed huge stress on the whole country and its economic resources, and we are very fortunate that the City of London Corporation has been consistently supportive of the Barbican’s work and of its staff. The Barbican Centre Board and Trust have guided our activities and we are very grateful to all our supporters and funders for their continued involvement. Huge thanks go to our staff and our freelancers for their commitment to the Barbican within this constantly changing and uncertain environment.

On a personal note, throughout this difficult time I have felt a strong responsibility to work towards the successful reopening of the Barbican. After fourteen years here, it is now time for me to move on to other things. It has been a huge privilege to help guide the Barbican through this period; my hope for the future is that with reopening, the entire Barbican community will be able to come together to provide that unrivalled service and stimulus to our audiences that is the fundamental purpose of the Barbican.

Tom Sleigh
Chairman, Barbican Centre Board

The past year has been one of great change and uncertainty.

Closing the Barbican was undeniably difficult, but every challenge is also an opportunity.

During a year of lockdowns and reopenings, our main objective was finding ways to continue to present a vibrant arts and learning programme as well as to support artists, and to partner organisations and the wider arts ecosystem. It was inspiring to see how everyone at the Barbican innovated and adjusted so quickly and with such dedication to this new way of working.

The Barbican also continued to play a key role in Culture Mile, a City of London Corporation initiative. Together with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Symphony Orchestra and Museum of London we worked hard to put creative engagement with local communities to the fore during an unprecedented year.

The impact of this global pandemic on the arts, creative industries, tourism, and people’s wellbeing has been enormous, and it is therefore reassuring that culture and creativity will be an integral part of the City’s post-Covid recovery, and of the future. That’s why in February 2021 the City of London Corporation announced a major renewal of the Barbican Centre to reimagine the possibilities of an arts and learning centre for a new era.

Ensuring that the Barbican is as inclusive, diverse and accessible as possible is now vital to us. In response to the death of George Floyd, the Barbican embarked on activity, discussion and learning to become an anti-racist organisation and to place equality at the heart of everything we do. It is clear we did not move at the pace or with the dedication this agenda demands. We have much further to go on this, but we are committed to addressing racism in all its forms and creating a truly inclusive organisation.

I would like to thank everyone at the Barbican, my colleagues on the Barbican Board, as well as the City of London Corporation for their exceptional support and hard work keeping the Barbican running over this period. Their adaptability and creativity during this constantly changing situation has been invaluable and I look forward to the Barbican continuing to play a leading role in the area’s creative future.

Farmida Bi and Robert Glick
Chair and Vice Chair, Barbican Centre Trust

It brings us great pleasure to introduce jointly this year’s Annual Review – our first as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Barbican Centre Trust respectively. We are delighted to also welcome four new Trustees: Tom Bloxham MBE, Tracey-Joy Harrison, Jeff Holland, and David Kapur. We are excited to convene such a strong group of advocates to support the Barbican’s fundraising efforts and look forward to benefiting from their diverse range of skills and experience.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank sincerely all those who generously supported the Barbican through what has been an incredibly difficult year. Despite multiple closures, we were able to raise more than £1.4million towards our arts and learning programmes in 2020/21. Thank you so much to all those who contributed and stuck with us through such uncertainty.

We are indebted to the incredible work of outgoing Chair, Emma Kane, who stepped down after nine years of service in May this year. We also extend deep gratitude to outgoing Trustees, Richard Bernstein, Geraldine Brodie, Professor Dame Henrietta Moore DBE FBA, and John Murray. We would like to acknowledge all that they have done for the Barbican, and thank them for the strong foundations upon which we shall continue to build.

We also want to pay tribute to Sir Roger Gifford, who sadly passed away in May 2021. Sir Roger served as an invaluable Trustee for seven years until his death, generously supporting the Barbican as a Patron and staunchly advocating for our work. His passion and commitment to the Barbican will not be forgotten and our thoughts remain with his family and friends.

As we emerge from the events of the past year, we believe strongly that arts and culture will play a key role in the nation’s recovery. Thank you again to all those who have supported us during 2020/21, and we look forward to celebrating the Barbican’s 40th anniversary next year.

Programme

A year like no other
_{Rethinking our programme for unprecedented times}

As tumultuous and unpredictable as the past year has been, we were fortunate to present 524 events in person and online across all our art forms – music, visual arts, cinema, theatre and dance – featuring 932 artists. Despite extensive periods of lockdown and closures, we’re incredibly proud to have shared our hybrid programme of digital and in-person events and exhibitions as well as our free offer, such as our Conservatory, with 208,000 people, and this doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of people engaging with our innovative Read, Watch & Listen digital content. There were moments during the past year when we didn’t believe we’d be able to share our passion for the arts and creative learning with this many people across the UK and beyond, and we’re immensely grateful to everyone who supported us.

Throughout 2020/21, we’ve taken a completely new approach to producing our arts programme, community events and learning activities. We’ve made great strides in providing a blended offer of live and digital programming to suit our altered way of living, and to support artists during this unprecedented time. Exploring new ways to connect to the arts and to each other has become key, particularly as experiencing creativity and culture is a valuable way to support our health and wellbeing. We’re all finding ourselves in completely new territory, but by joining forces and working collaboratively, we’ve forged exciting new connections with audiences, artists and communities.

Our first streaming service, Cinema on Demand, launched in July 2020, offering a curated programme of international, independent films and online ScreenTalks. One of the many highlights of Cinema on Demand was the Architecture on Film screening of Aalto (Finland 2020, Dir Virpi Suutari), an intimate journey through the work and life of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto – one of the 20th century’s greatest modern designers. We also invested in an entirely new hybrid concert series, Live from the Barbican, which launched in October 2020 and featured classical and contemporary musicians for both socially distanced live audiences, as well as for those streaming globally. The eclectic line-up included artists such as Sir Bryn Terfel, The Kanneh-Mason Family, Shabaka Hutchings, Emmy the Great, Erland Cooper, The Divine Comedy, Nubya Garcia, Ian Bostridge and Dame Sarah Connolly. Both streaming platforms were conceptualised and built entirely in-house.

Visual arts highlights included our acclaimed group exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography; the first major exhibition on the ground-breaking dancer and choreographer Michael Clark; and A Countervailing Theory, the first UK commission from Nigerian-American artist, Toyin Ojih Odutola. The three exhibitions were available in person, as well as via online walk-throughs, meaning an even broader audience could engage with these fascinating shows.

Throughout the year, we continued to commission young artists through Creative Learning programmes such as Subject to Change: New Horizons. We also launched an online exhibition by our Young Visual Arts Group, featuring newly created works from thirteen emerging visual artists exploring themes such as the relationship between the individual and the collective.

Although our theatre and dance programme was hit hardest by the pandemic, the team continued to collaborate with artists and companies to create bespoke work, including Inspired a new series for Nothing Concrete, our weekly podcast and Akin’s We Cover the Universe, an interactive, sensory, online show combining poetry and drawing for under-fives.

We believe that working and learning in partnership with our neighbours and the wider industry has never been more vital for developing inclusive, sustainable projects and networks. Over the past year, our Communities and Neighbourhoods team, in collaboration with local organisations and councils, produced the free community events Walthamstow Garden Party in the Air and Leytonstone Loves Film, and launched Communities in Residence at the Barbican. This new programme provides free space at the Barbican Centre to local community organisations, as well as facilitating in-person creative workshops and social activities for people experiencing issues including mental health problems and loneliness.

Finally, our Public Programming team organised an exciting series of online events and talks, including the third edition of the feminist literary festival New Suns, which invited fresh perspectives and provoked topical conversations, while Barbican International Enterprises was busy coordinating some of our touring exhibitions and preparing their next major exhibition for 2022.

None of this work would have been possible without the continuing support of the City of London Corporation, our founder and principal funder, and the generosity of our individual, business, and trust and foundation supporters. To keep our programme accessible to everyone, and to keep investing in the artists we work with, we need to raise more than 60% of our income through ticket sales, commercial activities and fundraising every year.

Music

Huw Humphreys, our Head of Music, on creating the pioneering concert series Live from the Barbican

Music at the Barbican was not immune to the challenges of the last year and this was evident most obviously when the Centre had to close its doors temporarily in March 2020 and all scheduled concerts were either cancelled or postponed. We quickly realised that, in order to continue our commitment to supporting artists and partner organisations, we would have to pivot to new modes of working, making our spaces safe, upskilling our staff, and working with new technologies to connect with our audiences. As a result, we created an entirely new music season, Live from the Barbican, that was right for the changed circumstances. This new hybrid concert series for socially distanced live audiences, as well as global streaming audiences, was developed and delivered in-house. All performances were filmed using the Barbican’s multi-camera broadcast technology, which was significantly expanded for this concert series. These new productions brought the excitement of a live Barbican Hall performance to viewers online for the first time, using the highest quality broadcasting, while live audiences in the Hall could return when this was permitted. This season was made possible by the generosity of our supporters including Cockayne –⁠ Grants for the Arts, the London Community Foundation, Mr and Mrs Bassatne, Jane Hindley, and Trevor Fenwick.

This new model future-proofed our programming and meant that we could react to the changing levels of restrictions, lockdowns and government guidance. It allowed us, for example, to continue with livestreaming even as the Centre had to close its doors to live audiences again in November 2020.

The series featured a world-class line-up of artists alongside the Barbican’s wonderful family of associate orchestras, in programmes of trademark Barbican eclecticism. Many of the featured artists had been busy working on new music, programmes and albums over lockdown but hadn’t performed regularly – if at all – in front of a live audience since March 2020.

Concerts in autumn 2020 included celebrated bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel with Barbican Associate Ensemble Britten Sinfonia; multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper; revered chamber pop group The Divine Comedy; singer-songwriter Emmy the Great, Northumbrian songsmith Richard Dawson and saxophonist Nubya Garcia all presenting music from their new albums; the seven brothers and sisters of The Kanneh-Mason Family together in their first public concert in London; and singers Ian Bostridge and Dame Sarah Connolly with pianist Julius Drake and the Carducci Quartet. Barbican Associate Orchestra BBC Symphony Orchestra performed a concert with Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo and soprano Anu Komsi, and went on a mind-bending musical voyage with Professor Brian Cox and Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska. The EFG London Jazz Festival, in partnership with our Associate Producer Serious, featured Cassie Kinoshi and SEED Ensemble, and Shabaka Hutchings performing Copland’s Clarinet Concerto with Britten Sinfonia. The Christmas period brought festive music featuring saxophonist Jess Gillam and singer-songwriter Katie Melua with the BBC Singers and members of the BBC Concert Orchestra; and Barbican Associate Ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music kept a Barbican Christmas tradition going by performing Handel’s Messiah.

While we were unable to welcome international visitors to the Barbican stage, our digital offer also included a virtual residency from the Australian Chamber Orchestra, our International Associate Ensemble at Milton Court, and their Music Director Richard Tognetti. The ACO curated an entirely free programme of concerts, podcasts, photography, videos, conversations and more for a digital residency that took place at the beginning of December 2020, marking their third year as a Barbican partner.

Visual Arts

Jane Alison, our Head of Visual Arts, on staging exhibitions during a pandemic

This past year has been enormously challenging, but also rewarding for the Visual Arts team. We have seen exhibitions open only to swiftly close, exhibitions shunted back, exhibitions hung that then remained closed, and shows extended to ensure they could be seen –⁠ as well as constant concern about securing loans and looking after our visitors. All the while we have been planning the forward programme to the end of 2024, looking after each other, and working with colleagues across the Centre and beyond.

The Barbican first closed due to the pandemic in March 2020, and our main gallery exhibition, Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, which was generously sponsored by Calvin Klein, closed with it, having been open for just 26 days. ‘A vast, ambitious and timely group show’ (Guardian), this major exhibition explored ways in which masculinity is experienced, performed, coded and socially constructed, through photography and film from the 1960s to the present day. Among the first London venues to welcome visitors back after lockdown, the Gallery reopened with Masculinities in July 2020 for a further six weeks.

Another highlight, the Curve commission Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Countervailing Theory, was due to open on 26 March 2020 but of course couldn’t. Installation continued under strict safety guidelines during lockdown and the exhibition opened on 11 August, without the artist present. It then closed and reopened, only to close again in December when London entered Tier 3 restrictions. Despite all the closures and reduced capacity, close to 23,000 visitors came to see this timely commission, which was hailed as a standout exhibition during such a troubled year.

Disappointingly, we were not so fortunate with Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer, which was severely curtailed. This first-ever major exhibition of the work of the groundbreaking dancer and choreographer – and our Artistic Associate of fifteen years –⁠ explored his unique combination of classical and contemporary culture, unfolding as a constellation of striking portraits of Clark through the eyes of legendary collaborators and world-renowned artists.

Despite the much-reduced opening period, the exhibition was joyously uplifting for those who flocked to see it and we were very grateful for the support of Bottega Veneta at such a difficult time.

Pandemic-related disruptions were not unique to London of course, and our partner venues in Europe showing our touring exhibitions have suffered similar closures over the year. Toyin Ojih Odutola’s A Countervailing Theory made its way from the Barbican to the Kunsten Museum of Art Aalborg, Denmark, in February 2021, although it wasn’t able to open until April due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, audiences in Bern, Switzerland and Bilbao, Spain were able to enjoy Lee Krasner: Living Colour for at least some of the planned showings. Masculinities: Liberation through Photography opened, closed, and opened again at the Gropius Bau in Berlin.

Theatre and Dance

Toni Racklin, our Head of Theatre and Dance, on finding new opportunities during a challenging year

When the pandemic struck, our entire Theatre and Dance season collapsed like a house of cards.

We started shifting productions to the autumn but very quickly things unravelled as companies were prevented from rehearsing, touring plans fell apart, and travel restrictions were imposed. The final blow came when the Royal Shakespeare Company was unable to visit the Barbican Theatre due to the impact of the pandemic.

Like everyone in the sector we immediately looked at what we could do digitally. We collaborated with a variety of artists and companies to create bespoke work. This included a brand-new podcast series, Inspired, in which some of our favourite artists and Young Barbican members interviewed their heroes, including Amrou Al Khadi, Danny Boyle, Hannah Gadsby and Susan Wakoma.

The multi-talented Inua Ellams presented a Poetry and Film Hack; Split Britches hosted a meditative Porch Sitting; and for Christmas, Akin created a beautiful interactive show, We Cover the Universe, for the under-fives.

Whenever we were allowed to access our spaces again, our technical team was there making our rehearsal room, stages, and dressing rooms look like new. When rehearsals and filming could be resumed, we put into place strict Covid-19 protocols so that we could continue to support artists in a variety of ways: we welcomed Boy Blue, who used the Theatre to develop new ideas that they shared with audiences on social media; complementing the Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer exhibition in the Art Gallery, Kate Coyne, Associate Director of Michael Clark Company, in collaboration with Barbican Creative Learning, ran dance workshops for members of the brain injury association, Headway East London; the Royal Shakespeare Company was able to conduct some research and development for its 2022 Barbican production; choreographer Dickson Mbi worked on a new piece; and Ballet Black filmed The Waiting Game by Mthuthuzeli November, which will be available to online audiences in Autumn 2021. Meanwhile, in The Pit we welcomed our colleagues from BIE and the Art Gallery; the Guildhall School of Music & Drama used the space for their doctorate programme and their PACE season; and this year’s talented cohort of six Open Lab artists were spread across The Pit, the rehearsal room and the Conservatory, trialling new ideas.

We also established a wonderful new relationship with the Bridge Theatre that enabled our co-presentation of Flight at their theatre, which played to capacity audiences and was many people’s first experience of seeing a show after lockdown.

Cinema

Gali Gold, our Head of Cinema, on reimagining the joy of cinema

In March 2020 we were celebrating our most successful year to date with record audience numbers. Then, just as we launched the Human Rights Watch Film Festival to full houses, we had to turn our projectors off and dark our venues.

While audiences turned to their small screens and streaming platforms, we focused our work to make sure that our programme could reach people in their homes, and that the films and filmmakers we champion would reach an audience.

In July 2020 we launched the streaming platform Barbican Cinema on Demand to offer a curated programme of international independent films and online ScreenTalks, described by Guy Lodge in the Observer as a ‘new bijou streaming service … well worth checking out’.

In September, Inner States was the first Barbican curated cinema season to stream online, described as a ‘timely showcase of introspective gems’ in the Observer. During the second lockdown Cinema on Demand proved invaluable. Palestine Film Festival, the EFG London Jazz Festival and Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest were transferred from in-venue events to Cinema on Demand, enabling them to take place during venue closure. All our films reached a wide audience, while the EFG London Jazz Festival stream of Billie, a biopic of the troubled jazz singer Billie Holiday, was a particular success.

During the weeks when we were able to show films in-venue, we took advantage of the Barbican’s spaces to create safe and enjoyable experiences. In October and December, we resumed our popular Family Film Club events in the Barbican foyers. Young families brought their own blankets and pillows for picnic-style, socially distanced screenings, including a celebratory Wintry Wonderland selection of snowy shorts in December.

As part of our ongoing commitment to present the widest possible range of voices and perspectives on screen, we developed the Emerging Film Curators’ Lab, a new career development programme for up-and-coming film curators. Originally designed to happen face-to-face, we adapted the lab to take place online in June.

Nine curatorial teams were shortlisted for the free Lab, and four project teams were selected to develop and present their screening events both via Cinema on Demand and in-venue during October and December, with some additional on demand programming in February.

The period of closure gave us an opportunity to refurbish the cinemas and cinema foyers, putting accessible design, sustainability and transformed visitor experience at the heart of the spaces. Designed by RUFFARCHITECTS, the welcoming, aesthetically pleasing and comfortable spaces fulfil our aim to offer everyone an inspiring encounter with the arts.

For us, as with many in the independent exhibition sector, the pandemic presented unprecedented challenges that created new ways of working, showing film and collaborating. We are delighted to have conceived new ways to adjust and continue to bring inspiring cinema to our audiences.

Communities & Neighbourhoods

Rachel Smith, our Communities & Neighbourhoods Senior Producer, on making and sharing our cultures and creativity together in the places we call home

Our Beyond Barbican programme is funded by Arts Council England and focuses on creating space for people with different skills, backgrounds, and expertise to come together to make things happen in their neighbourhoods.

As lockdown hit, a flurry of conversations took place across our teams about how to keep collaborating with and supporting our network of creatives, artists, residents and businesses in east London. At the time we were in the process of cancelling several key areas of our programme, including our large-scale festivals Open Fest and Walthamstow Garden Party. But amidst the chaos of putting a stop to these huge, sprawling projects, new ideas were emerging.

We focused on three key priorities: to distribute as much funding and create as many work opportunities as possible for our creative network; to provide space for the network to keep connecting, sharing and supporting each other; and to offer free opportunities for residents to get creative at home.

In July 2020, Walthamstow Garden Party in the Air, was launched as a reimagined festival for lockdown times. The programme featured a range of ways for residents and families at home to get creative and be inspired by the creativity of their neighbours. Twenty projects were commissioned involving 49 local organisations and 335 local residents.

Content was shared for free via an online festival hub, as well as through eight hours of live radio broadcast in partnership with East London Radio, listened to by nearly 12,000 people. Resources were also shared with local families lacking access to the internet through the distribution of 2,000 creative packs.

In September 2020, with lockdown easing, we embarked on our first hybrid festival model for Leytonstone Loves Film. The festival celebrates the magic of the movies, film culture and the love of stories that help us feel connected, supporting local film-makers, artists, film clubs and businesses to come together and create a shared experience in a year of change and upheaval.

In total 70 films were screened as part of 22 digital at-home experiences and 9 live indoor and outdoor film screenings in the local area. Of the films screened, 32 were made by local film-makers.

The festival is made by a collective of 20 local film-makers and organisations in partnership with the Barbican. At a really challenging time, the festival created space for the collective to experiment with new exhibition models that connect local audiences to fantastic film-led experiences on their doorstep, created by talented artists and film enthusiasts from Leytonstone and east London.

Creative Learning

Rebecca Gould, our Creative Learning Senior Producer, on working with young people and schools during a pandemic

Creative Learning moved online in March 2020 and continued delivering work with young people, teachers and artists. Despite the circumstances, we managed to reach 2,461 participants through our programmes and worked with 205 schools and community groups.

Starting with a rebooted Subject to Change: New Horizons in July 2020, we worked with fifteen young artists from our Young Creatives alumni on paid commissions to produce work responding to our constantly changing world. Over 10,000 views later, this digital creative chronology was then turned into a physical installation on Level G of the Barbican.

We also recruited new cohorts for our Young Creatives programmes – including Young Film Programmers, Young Visual Arts Group, and the London Centre for the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO), generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) – running them entirely online.

As a result, we were able to welcome young people from outside London for the first time. Highlights were a blended Chronic Youth Film Festival, an exciting Young Visual Arts Group online exhibition, and a NOYO film that will be available in 2022.

Our Creative Careers programme was reimagined for the digital space, with young people taking hold of the curating reins for four online sessions. The creative industry is one of the fastest-growing and most internationally attractive sectors of the UK economy, however the pandemic meant many doors were closed to young people trying to break into the industry. This programme will continue to ensure that the Barbican is a place where young people can gain creative skills for work and life.

In the summer term, we were delighted to be back working in schools again. We were a partner on Fusion Futures – a Culture Mile Learning and Foundation for Future London employability programme. Each school is paired with an artist mentor and industry partner and the scheme is designed to develop skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity and problem-solving, in order to ready students for the 21st-century workplace.

During the past year, we continued our flagship schools programme, Barbican Box, involving nearly 500 students. Children's author and poet, Michael Rosen, curated a Box for six schools in Norfolk and also led online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers. This was followed by artist mentors creating work with pupils, based on Michael’s poems and the Box he created. Similarly, interactive theatre company Coney curated a Barbican Box for eight primary and secondary schools across Harlow and Manchester. We are incredibly grateful for the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation towards this national programme.

Over the past year, we’ve also made some organisational changes to our relationship with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, our partner of eleven years, meaning that Creative Learning will no longer be a joint department between the two organisations. This is of course a big change, but it also represents a great opportunity for us and the Guildhall School to further embed civic engagement work at the heart of what we do. This unique partnership has supported 140,000 people of all ages and backgrounds to develop creative skills for life, and there is a great deal we will continue to do together despite this change, including identifying progression routes for young people on Creative Learning programmes to study at Guildhall School through our community of Young Creatives.

We’re now looking to the future: Fusion Futures will return in 2022 bigger and better; Barbican Box will be back in London; and there will be much emphasis on getting schools into the Centre using our arts programme. We will also continue our Young Creatives programmes and work on finding more ways to connect young artists to each other – and to paid opportunities.

Public Programming

Our Senior Producer, Siddharth Khajuria, on how our public programme continues to explore new forms of cultural activity through creating unique spaces for perspectives from the arts and beyond

Our public programme is a place for unlikely communities of people to come together, ask questions, and spark conversations about the cultures and ideas that shape how we live.

In October 2020, we launched Soundhouse: Intimacy and Distance, a collective online listening experience made up of three ‘rooms’ of experimental podcasts and audio from around the world. Curated by audio artists Arlie Adlington, Axel Kacoutié and Ariana Martinez, the experimental online space was supported by Wellcome and visited by over 8,000 people.

We worked closely with independent curators Eleanor McDowall and Nina Garthwaite, as well as our in-house digital team, to co-develop the online platform. Describing the project, the Guardian wrote: ‘The absence of museums, galleries and art centres this year has been a sore loss … Despite valiant efforts to do so, it’s impossible to replicate the experience online. Staring at paintings on a computer screen or watching video performances just isn’t the same. Which is why I was so glad to see London’s Barbican Centre come up with something that does work in our socially distanced world … It is, finally, art as it was meant to be experienced.’

Over the last few years, we’ve also collaborated with the independent publisher Sarah Shin to stage the New Suns feminist literary festival. March 2021 saw the third edition of the festival take place in a newly created online hub developed by our digital products team. The festival combined three days of online events with a physical mail-out bundle of new writing and merchandise. The programme drew inspiration from themes in Octavia Butler’s writing, in particular the eerily prescient Earthseed series, imagining 2020s America ravaged by ecological disaster, violence and racist disorder, and led by a disruptive president.

The talks and workshops examined the inevitability of change, adaptive and resilient communities, and humanity’s relationship to the stars, with speakers including adrienne maree brown and Dorothea Lasky. More than 600 people joined us, nearly half of whom were first-time visitors to the Barbican.

As we reflect on these projects, and develop the next phase of our public programme, we’re keen to sustain some of the new online spaces and platforms we’ve developed. They’ve provided intimate and accessible places for communities to gather and explore a breadth of ideas.

Barbican International Enterprises

Acting Co-Heads of Barbican International Enterprises (BIE) Luke Kemp and Patrick Moran, on sustaining our international collaborations and touring exhibitions through a challenging year

As was the case for all exhibition development and touring organisations, the impact of the global pandemic meant a radical reorganisation of BIE’s 2020 international exhibitions programme. Our AI: More Than Human exhibition – the inaugural show at the newly opened co-producing venue, Forum Groningen – was closed prematurely but was fortunate to be able to welcome visitors again as the Netherlands reopened over the summer. The successful run of our Game On exhibition in Madrid was also cut short, and exhibitions in development – Virtual Realms: Videogames Transformed and the next BIE exhibition planned for launch at the Barbican – had to be delayed to 2021 and 2022, respectively.   

Although the Game On exhibition was closed in Madrid, the neon-centric exhibition design created specially for this venue by Madrid-based studio Green Design was nominated for a Dezeen Award for both the jury and public prizes in their inaugural Exhibition Design category. The visually striking updated exhibition design was selected as the winner of the public vote, highlighting the relevance and potential for reinvention of this long-running touring exhibition.

During the closures of venues internationally, BIE worked to prepare for exhibition touring to resume, developing new procedures for safe installation and enjoyment of interactive exhibits. We continued to make progress on the development of our forthcoming exhibitions despite the delay caused by venue closures. During this time, we worked extensively in The Pit to test and prototype elements of the new immersive Virtual Realms: Videogames Transformed commissions. In 2021 we will see the re-establishment of an exciting programme from BIE, including the launch of Virtual Realms in Singapore; the tour of AI: More Than Human recommencing in Liverpool; and Game On opening at the Forum Groningen, the second BIE exhibition to visit this new arts centre in the Netherlands. BIE is also looking for new partnerships for the exhibition Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics that will continue to tour until 2022, and to widen the network of artists and venues we work with to further internationalise BIE’s dynamic programme of new media and popular culture exhibitions.

London Symphony Orchestra

The LSO, the Barbican’s resident orchestra, on turning challenges into new opportunities

From the moment the LSO could no longer perform in public, their aim was to maintain contact with their audiences. In April 2020, they launched AlwaysPlaying, broadcasting weekly prerecorded Barbican concerts at the familiar time of Thursday and Sunday evenings. They added short recitals featuring LSO musicians playing in their homes, then concerts with a few musicians performing in LSO St Luke’s. Four months into lockdown, they were able to bring the orchestra back together and record a new programme of weekly concerts for broadcast on streaming platforms. Later in the year, the LSO also contributed concerts to the highly successful Live from the Barbican series.

By May 2021, the LSO had played 37 concerts with an in-person audience, with 34 full orchestra concerts broadcast, and 24 concerts on streaming platforms reaching approximately 223,000 viewers.

From the beginning of lockdown, LSO Discovery’s learning, engagement and training programmes were reconfigured for online delivery, with 600 sessions delivered to 15,000 people.

The LSO deepened their relationships with partners in Chile and Japan, creating tailored versions of their successful learning programmes, and recording new bespoke concerts for their audiences. This expansion of the LSO’s digital content contributed to the growth of overseas audiences hungry for music through streaming platforms and digital audio music channels.

We now look forward to the LSO’s return to the Barbican with a full programme of concerts in September 2021.

Supporting our programme

Natasha Harris, our Director of Development, on the invaluable contribution of our supporters

The year 2020/21 has undoubtedly been a turbulent one. Building closures, event cancellations, social distancing and three national lockdowns have meant that we simply weren’t able to engage with our community of supporters in the same way. Despite the year’s challenges, however, we still have much to celebrate thanks to the generosity and trust of our supporters, who have stuck with us and helped us weather the storm.

First and foremost, we want to thank everyone who converted their tickets into a donation, added a gift to their order, or made a donation of any kind over the past year. This was an unprecedented situation, and your kindness and faith in us meant we were able to divert funds to other essential costs that helped keep the Barbican afloat. A huge thank you must also go to our family of ongoing supporters – the Director’s Circle, our Patrons and our Corporate Members – for standing by us during the past year.

We realised several exciting projects in 2020/21 with the help of supporters, including our Live from the Barbican concert series; our acclaimed Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer exhibition, sponsored by Bottega Veneta; and work with The Liminal Space, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation UK Branch, which enabled us to consider the Barbican’s civic role as we look beyond the current crisis into the future. As ever, our National Portfolio Grant from Arts Council England has underpinned so many projects that we delivered, allowing us to engage new audiences and communities in our work.

Though in-person events were impossible for much of 2020/21, we were able to welcome supporters to a range of exciting digital experiences during the year. These included the Lord Mayor’s Breakfast, which featured a panel discussion with sector experts on how the arts can support young people’s post-pandemic recovery; Barbican Insights, a series of exclusive live ‘in conversation’ events with artists including Gustavo Dudamel, and Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason; and several Lunch & Learn events, which offered in-depth insights from curators, including sessions on Toyin Ojih Odutola and Michael Clark, and a look at our cinema programme. Thank you to everyone who joined us at an event this year, and we look forward to seeing you in person soon.

We are so grateful to those who have supported us over the past year. To keep our programme accessible to all, and to invest in the artists we work with, we need to raise more than 60 percent of our income through ticket sales, commercial activities and fundraising in an ordinary year. In 2020/21, with income sources like ticket sales and commercial hires made impossible for extended periods, we needed your donations more than ever. Thank you so much for all you have helped us achieve during this period.

Barbican Shop

Jo Davis, our Head of Retail, on growing an online retail offer

Barbican Shop has always provided a welcome to Barbican Centre visitors, with a two-floor space by our Silk Street entrance, as well as a shop in our Art Gallery. During the lockdowns and building closures of the past year, our online shop has grown in prominence and allowed us to continue trading, with a range of design-led gifts inspired by the Barbican’s artistic events and iconic architecture. Our volume of online orders increased by 40% from 2019/20 to 2020/21, and we also had our busiest online Christmas ever. This increase in sales is significant because all purchases made through our shop help support the Barbican’s arts and learning programmes.

Reflecting our new way of living, we curated a range of items available through the online shop to help with working from home, to provide entertainment for children and families, and to guide mental wellbeing, including a selection of books and activities from the School of Life that teach how to lead a more fulfilling life and offer key insights into emotional health.

As part of a collaboration with STORE STORE for London Craft Week 2020, students from Sydney Russell School and New Regent’s College were guided by product designers Tessa Geuze and Stine Keinicke to design and make a series of colourful beeswax crayons inspired by the Brutalist architecture of the Barbican Centre and Estate. These were available to purchase in the Barbican Shop.

STORE STORE, an innovative London-based community project, also teamed up with us to organise a series of individual artistic workshops for London Craft Week in September 2020. These were designed to explore new materials and processes. Originally planned to take place in-store, they were reconfigured as online events, and materials were sent to participants so they could take part from the comfort of their homes.

The trend for reusable, sustainable and eco-friendly products did not lose momentum during the pandemic. In February 2021 we introduced a range of products to promote sustainable living, including items such as reusable wax sandwich wraps, compostable sponges made from natural materials, stainless steel straws, and a number of publications such as Six Weeks to Zero Waste by Kate Arnell.

We also continued to develop bespoke product ranges to accompany exhibitions in our Art Gallery once they were able to open again. For the autumn exhibition Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer, we stocked a unique range of accessories featuring classic designs from Michael Clark productions, as well as an exclusive reproduction of Peter Saville’s daring 1998 poster for current/SEE. The catalogue for the exhibition also proved to be our biggest grossing online item over the year.

Commercial hires at the Barbican

Jackie Boughton, our Head of Business Events, on how we adapted our commercial events offer

We’re responsible for the marketing, sales and delivery of a wide range of commercial and private hires that take place across the Centre and provide key income for the Barbican. This includes AGMs, conferences, product launches, special events such as corporate summer and Christmas parties, weddings and, increasingly, photoshoots and filming. Against a backdrop of a very difficult and challenging period for the events sector, the team worked tirelessly to successfully maintain a significant number of enquiries throughout 2020/21. Despite several changes to dates due to locking and unlocking restrictions, and an uncertain market, a high volume of existing bookings were also retained for the future.

As a result of these efforts, our Business Events team managed to secure in the region of £1 million in revenue across the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years.

The Business Events sales team was able to maintain a high level of enquiries by carrying out a ‘soft marketing’ approach, which included a focused customer relationship management campaign, along with attendance at online events. With this methodology, the team generated over £26 million of new enquiries for the 2020 to 2026 period, which has not only protected the base line business for the future but is also a good indication of the pent-up demand that exists in the sector.

Further success was also achieved thanks to forward strategic planning. Towards the end of 2019, Business Events identified that developing interest in photoshoots and filming could be a growth income stream, thus we were in an excellent position to deliver these opportunities as soon as we were open again. Shoots for a substantial number of high-profile brands across the year took place, including New Era Caps, Herbal Essences and Peloton.

Community Partnerships

Rachel Smith, our Communities & Neighbourhoods Senior Producer, on forging new collaborations with our neighbours during the pandemic

Our Community Partnerships programme focuses on nurturing collaborative relationships between the Barbican and local community organisations who work with people often excluded or overlooked by dominant culture due to financial, health or social barriers.

Bringing together a range of brand-new initiatives such as Communities in Residence, alongside pre-existing ones including our Community Collaborator partnership with Headway East London and Community Views – events made for, by and with our community partners – the programme has grown and matured since the start of the pandemic.

As the impact of Covid-19 began to hit, we worked hard to connect with our networks, taking time to listen to how lockdown was impacting them and explore how we might be useful. One of the first new ideas we got off the ground was Communities in Residence. The programme provided free space to community partners whose essential services were being interrupted by not having Covid-safe premises from which to work.

Throughout the pandemic we provided free weekly space and support to three Communities in Residence partners: Accumulate, who provide creative activities for people who have experienced homelessness; Age UK City of London, who work with older local people unable to access online support services; and Key Changes, an organisation providing music engagement and recovery programmes for young people and adults affected by mental health conditions.

Developing Communities in Residence has allowed us to nurture new relationships with our local community and helped shift how we think about space within the Centre. The Barbican has so much to contribute to the local community, and so much to learn from collaboration with our neighbours, supporting and celebrating the extraordinary cultures and creativity on our doorstep. We’re excited about the future potential of this model and hope to continue developing and growing it well beyond the pandemic.

Read more about the full Community Partnerships programme.

Artist Development

Every year we run several development programmes for emerging artists. One of them is our Open Lab programme run by our Theatre and Dance and Creative Learning teams. Both support the development of early- to mid-career artists through a residency with technical provision, financial support, and training and mentoring from industry professionals as well as in-house practitioners. But how do you collaborate and support artists during a pandemic and multiple lockdowns?

When we had to close our building unexpectedly in March 2020, we put our heads together and reimagined our programme in order to respond to the ever-changing circumstances. The most important things to us were to invest in artists, especially those currently underrepresented on our stages; to support them to develop their practice and experiment with new methods and approaches; and to ensure they could continue making and creating, even while the Barbican and most other arts spaces were closed.

Instead of focusing on what wasn’t possible, we decided to focus on what was: mentoring, training, coaching and support, often virtually and sometimes in person when government guidelines allowed. Working with a range of external industry experts and mentors, we were able to deliver a holistic and nurturing professional development opportunity that supported these artists to continue taking risks with their work, and enabled them to develop strategically as well as creatively.

Our Creative Learning Open Lab programme supported four artists to develop their socially engaged practice, without the expectation of a final outcome. These artists are Oliver Cross, an inclusive photo, film and music practitioner who designed a project for autistic people to express their perspective of the world through music and images/film; visual artist Lucille Junkere, who explored the impact of British colonialism on the Caribbean and people of African Caribbean descent through textile portraits; actor, writer rapper/spoken word artist Nima Taleghani, who developed a workshop programme for young people interested in theatre making, acting, writing and storytelling, but who face barriers; and movement artist Elsabet Yonas, who developed a workshop series offering people of colour a community space to experience joy, freedom of expression and play as empowerment.

The Barbican Theatre’s Open Lab programme gave artists the opportunity to research and develop a new performance project or idea. The cohort included Nicole Vivien Watson, who worked with a collective of d/Deaf and hearing artists to unpack the capabilities of SUBPAC, a tactile audio system that allows people to feel music by wearing a device strapped to their back; Peyvand Sandeghian, who developed her play Dual دوگانه, exploring ideas of identity and belonging to two cultures, into a modular format enabling its presentation across different media and platforms; and Malik Nashad Sharpe (Marikiscrycrycry), who explored the terms ‘hope’ and ‘progress’ through experimental, boundary-pushing dance. The group also included Julene Robinson, who developed her piece about darkness, The Night Woman, through Jamaican music, dance, sound and technology; pink suits, whose new multi-disciplinary project Closet Bodies brought together live dance theatre performance and a visual arts exhibition highlighting closeted identities; and Yolanda Mercy, who explored the concept of attending a live theatre performance on the phone.

At a time when we are unable to come together and strengthen our collective imaginations, time and space for experimenting and playing with new ideas is invaluable for emerging artists. The pandemic and running these two Open Lab programmes has taught us new ways of being, learning and connecting.

Place

Maintaining an international arts centre during a global pandemic

The successful reopening of the Barbican to the public in July 2020 was the result of a significant cross-team effort. In line with government guidance, we introduced a range of measures to keep everyone safe during their visit, including limited venue capacities and enhanced cleaning schedules. The fact that 96% of Barbican visitors reported feeling safe or very safe when visiting the Centre is testament to the work of our Audience Experience Teams – Centre Management, Box Office, Security, Facilities and Cleaning.

Our Security, Centre Management, Cleaning and Engineering staff also worked hard to keep the Centre operational during the lockdowns, continuing to come into the building when we were closed to the public. These staff, along with our Hosts and Art Gallery Invigilators, also ensured the safety of visitors when we reopened. Our Audience Experience Box Office team faced a very different challenge working on innovative solutions to handle unimaginable levels of cancellations, refunds and exchanges, and to adapt quickly to support streamed performances. We thank them all – as well as our cleaning contract partner Servest, and our security contract partner ISS – for their constant support during this period.

The pandemic meant that we had to find new ways of reaching our audiences and connecting our staff with each other through the latest digital technologies. Our IT team was paramount in helping us establish a robust remote working culture and building new streaming platforms for our audiences to experience parts of our arts and learning programme from their homes.

Culture Mile

The Barbican is one of the founding partners of Culture Mile, the City of London’s cultural district, stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate.

Culture Mile is an ambitious initiative led by the City of London Corporation with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Museum of London, and the local community offering a vibrant hub of creativity, innovation and learning in the north-west corner of the Square Mile.

This year, Culture Mile put the needs of local communities at the heart of its programme. During the first lockdown, over 13,500 play packs – free activity bundles that allow families to get creative at home – were distributed via charities, community centres and foodbanks. In June 2020, Radio Local took to the digital and FM airwaves, broadcasting a daily show starring local people to an audience of over 20,000 across the run.

As the pandemic continued to take its toll on the economy, Culture Mile and the City of London Corporation convened a Culture & Commerce Taskforce, chaired by the Lord Mayor, to find new ways for these two sectors to collaborate. This process inspired a host of revitalising ideas for the area, including plans to animate shops, offices and foyers across the City with art.

In October 2020, Culture Mile launched the Imagine Fund, offering micro-grants to the community to develop their own creative ideas. Projects included a residents’ festive singalong, support sessions for unpaid carers, and a guided walk exploring the City’s floating pedways.

In November 2020, creative studio Play Nice was awarded the Fusion Prize, a £50,000 innovation award to support ideas that develop the creative skills most needed by today’s employers. Their winning idea, a cultural incubator programme titled The Pattern, delivered a wide range of projects developed and led by young, under-represented creatives, including a pop-up public garden in the City.

Conservatory

As part of our reopening in July 2020, we were pleased to be able to offer the public access to the Barbican Conservatory on a wider range of days than ever before. Having in recent years only been open to the public on Sundays and bank holidays, we were delighted to invite visitors to explore our hidden botanical oasis up to seven days a week.

The free offer proved to be incredibly popular, with 60,512 tickets booked between July 2020 and December 2020 during periods when guidelines allowed the Barbican to be open to the public. An extra ambiance was added to the space by our catering team, who served a range of craft beers, cocktails, wines, soft drinks and snacks from a specially created bar on the terrace level of the Conservatory.

Our gardening team also continued to bring life to the Conservatory, even during periods of closure. Various new and sometimes unusual plant species were planted to enhance the flower beds, some of the larger trees were pruned to allow more light into the lower areas of the space, and a completely remodelled tree fern bed was introduced to bring a more naturalistic feel to the space.

Designed by the Barbican’s architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the Conservatory is home to 1,500 species of plants and trees under a 23,000 square foot glass and steel roof that surrounds the Barbican Theatre’s fly tower.

The glass roof of the Conservatory is a striking sight when viewed from the Silk Street entrance to the Barbican, and we were able to light the roof for several important causes in 2020. On Thursday evenings during the spring, we lit the roof in blue to show support for and gratitude towards the NHS as part of the #lightitblue campaign. In July 2020, we lit up the Barbican in red for the nationwide #LightItInRed campaign to draw attention to the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s theatres, music venues, and art spaces. While in September, a red and white colour scheme was displayed in support of the people of Belarus as part of Belarus Free Theatre’s #standwithbelarus campaign.

Sustainability

Over the past year, we’ve continued to make progress on reducing the Barbican’s impact on the environment. Highlights include rolling out a single-use plastic-free policy, installing new covered cycle racks, and continued work on a pilot study with Julie’s Bicycle to develop a set of guidelines on what sustainable touring for exhibitions could look like. In March 2021 we were awarded £3.3 million of funding by the UK’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, which we’re investing to upgrade our 40-year-old heating and ventilation systems, as well as implementing new state-of-the-art lighting throughout the building that is less energy intensive.

Another major milestone was the launch of the City of London Corporation’s new Climate Action Strategy in October 2020. This strategy breaks new ground and sets out how we will achieve net zero, build climate resilience, and champion sustainable growth over the next two decades. By adopting the strategy, the Barbican commits to achieving net zero carbon emissions from our own operations by 2027 and becoming net zero across our supply chain by 2040.

In response to these radical new targets, we’ve been busy formulating a detailed action plan that will set out the steps we plan to take to deliver our ambitious carbon reduction targets and improve our overall environmental performance.

The need for this radical transformation is both urgent and challenging, and we know there is more to do to tackle the impact of our operations and activities on the environment and help shape a positive world for future generations.

Enhancing our spaces

We’ve been busy making necessary upgrades to some of our venues to enhance visitor experience

During 2020/21 when the Barbican was either shut to the public or operating at reduced visitor capacity, we took the opportunity to accelerate our improvement works programme to enhance our public spaces while keeping disruption to visitors to a minimum.

The Barbican’s Projects department oversaw the development and realisation of several key building improvements across the Centre including a complete refurbishment of Cinemas 2 and 3 on Beech Street. Designed by RUFFARCHITECTS, the new layout focuses on accessible design, sustainability, and a transformed visitor experience. As well as the installation of new seating in the auditoriums, a totally new foyer design has been introduced with an aesthetic that better integrates the Beech Street building with the main Barbican Centre. The Cinema 1 and Pit theatre foyer on Level -2 of the Centre was also refurbished, incorporating the same design and distinctive halo lighting scheme as the revamped Beech Street cinema building. There is now a striking and unified design across all the Barbican’s cinema spaces, and an accessible ticket desk has also been introduced to the Cinema 1 foyer.

A new carpet based on the original Barbican design was laid across the foyers of the Centre, bringing a warmer feeling to the space, while the stalls level of our concert hall has been refurbished and the floor repaired, resanded and polished. We also repaired and cleaned the walls, bringing the look of the Hall back to its original wonder.

Alongside larger-scale works, the Projects team oversee constant renewal and upgrade works to maintain an exceptional visitor experience across the building, which last year included the refurbishment of the walnut flooring in the Garden Room and of our Lakeside Terrace seating area, as well as the redecoration of the concert hall foyers and replacement of the Cinema 1 acoustic wall covering.

Barbican Renewal

Reimagining the Barbican for a new generation

In February 2021, the City of London Corporation reinforced its commitment to place culture at the heart of the Square Mile’s post-Covid recovery by announcing a major renewal of the Barbican Centre.

The Barbican arts centre opened in March 1982 and is about to turn forty. In those four decades, the iconic Brutalist building situated at the heart of the City of London has become a much-loved and internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary venue for world-class art, music, theatre, dance, film, creative learning and work with communities. We have welcomed millions of visitors and thousands of artists, all of whom have come together in our spaces and places to share extraordinary experiences in a unique environment.

The building has begun to show its age and this renewal project is an exciting opportunity to upgrade a global icon of Brutalist architecture, working in partnership with our communities to reimagine the possibilities of an arts and learning centre for a new generation.

The project will preserve and respect the complex’s original architectural vision and heritage, while adapting it to the changing needs of 21st-century artists, audiences and communities. It will contribute to our ambitions for equality, diversity and inclusion by ensuring all our spaces are safe, accessible and welcoming, opening the building up so more people feel a sense of ownership and belonging with regards to this unique urban environment.

Guided by ideas of inclusive design and the original utopian ideals on which it was created, the renewal project will look at every aspect of the Barbican building and reimagine what a truly public space can be, where people can come together, exchange ideas, forge communities and share experiences.

Environmental sustainability is central to the project, with the ambition to make major improvements to the environmental performance of the building and meet the Barbican and City of London Corporation’s target of reducing carbon emissions from our own operations to net zero by 2027 and our wider supply chain by 2040.

We have just launched a competitive selection process to find a world-class architect-led team to take this project forward and we’re planning to announce the winning proposal in spring 2022.

Finance

_{Principal funding sources City of London funding for 2020/21 is £17.5m. This represents 66% of total income up from 39% in 2019/20. Box Office income for 2020/21 is £0.8m. The siginifcant reduction from 2019/20 was due to the pandemic.
The pandemic also had a significant impact on Trading & Other income. £2.3m of Trading & Other income was achieved, down from £17.5m in 2019/20. Use of the furlough scheme meant £3.8m of furlough receipts were received.
Donations and other grants represented 5% of income in line with previous years.}

_{Attendance The attendance figures shown here include all ticketed events, both streamed and in-venue, visitors at the Curve Gallery and estimated attendance for commercial events and venues. The Centre has other non-ticketed activities in foyer spaces, offsite and international touring that are not included in the attendance figures shown here. A significant reduction in in-venue own promotion attendance can be seen in comparison to previous years, due to the impact of the pandemic on show cancellations and government restrictions, however, 2020/21 saw the establishment of our digital platform to help continue to reach audiences.}

Who's Who 2020/21

Management

Senior Management Team

Partners

Cultural and Education Partners

With thanks to

The Barbican is very grateful to all our supporters over 2020/21 listed here and the many thousands who have made a donation when purchasing tickets or who have contributed to the Barbican Centre Trust.

^{Barbican Cinema was supported by the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas in England, which is administered by the BFI, as part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund supporting arts and cultural organisations in England affected by the impact of COVID-19.}

Barbican Patrons

The Barbican Centre Trust Ltd is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 294282)

Centre Partner

Corporate Partners

Corporate Members Premier

Corporate Members Plus

Corporate Members

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