Spring at the Barbican: Retreat from the noise of the city with a season of growth and transformation
Sun 9 Feb—Sun 11 May 2025
Barbican announces a cross-arts programme of workshops, talks, screenings and events centred on this season’s exhibitions Noah Davis and Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land completing Barbican’s Spring 2025 programme celebrating gathering and renewal across the centre
Launching in February 2025, the Barbican presents Concrete Garden, a curated series of events including talks, live music and performances, workshops, exhibition tours, cinema screenings and wellness activities, drawing on themes of growth, reflection, gathering and renewal offering a rich tapestry of experiences to inspire, learn, connect and celebrate the beauty of everyday life.
The programme is built around Barbican’s new major exhibition focussing on the work of Noah Davis (Thu 6 Feb-Sun 11 May), an American artist whose work celebrated the power of art to elevate the everyday, and from Citra Sasmita’s Curve commission Into Eternal Land (Thu 30 Jan-Mon 21 Apr), which explores ancestral memory, ritual and migration. Davis’s ethos of making arts accessible to everyone can be found across the Centre through events ranging from films to talks, workshops, recitals and much more.
Central to Concrete Garden, Barbican’s iconic Conservatory will open for the public until 11pm on Fridays and 8pm on Sundays. This lush, green oasis is a serene space to simply unwind among 1,500 species of plants in the heart of the City, meet and have a drink to connect with friends, or to enjoy a series of all-day creative events featuring talks, workshops, and performances that ask questions about our place in the world, in nature, amongst others, and in time.
Concrete Garden events include:
- Discover the world of Noah Davis: An exhibition, music, films, workshops, curator tours and talks that uncover the magic in everyday life.
- Music Performances: The acclaimed jazz pianist Jason Moran presents a talk and concert inspired by Noah Davis, 60-strong queer-led ensemble F* Choir, and MA.MOYO (Belinda Zhawi) responds to the radical work and philosophy of the visionary artist.
- The Conservatory: an urban oasis: Conservatory open until 11pm every Friday and until 8pm every Sunday, and a series of Conservatory Takeovers featuring talks, workshops, performances and more.
- Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land: reimagined tales of ritual and ancestral memory in this free Curve exhibition, an Artist Talk and a film screening chosen by the artist.
Beyond Concrete Garden, wider highlights this spring include:
THEATRE & DANCE
- THE SEAGULL (Wed 26 Feb—Sat 5 Apr): A world premiere starring Cate Blanchett and Tom Burke in Chekhov’s classic, adapted by Duncan Macmillan & Thomas Ostermeier, directed by Thomas Ostermeier.
- Hamlet (Thu 24—Sun 27 Apr): TheLondon premiere of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy reinvented by Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza, performed by a cast of artists with Down’s Syndrome.
- Boy Blue: Barbican Associate Artist Boy Bluereturns with a three-day series of events including:
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- Hip Hop Matters (Fri 9 May): a thought-provoking conversation on the future of the UK street dance scene, from where we are in 2025 to what the future holds.
- A Night with Boy Blue – Generation Blue (Sat 10-Sun 11 May): an irresistible showcase featuring the entire Boy Blue company – over 100 performers – from the youngest pupils to professional dancers.
- BB – Frontline Battle (Sun 11 May): an explosive dance battle event, with an electric atmosphere provided by a line-up of guest judges and DJs.
MUSIC
- Theo Croker’s DREAM MANIFEST with special guests: (Sat 15 Feb): Jazz trumpeter Theo Croker and an array of special guests take audiences on a sonic journey exploring imagination and the power to manifest in the universe.
- Czech Philharmonic Residency with Semyon Bychkov: Conductor Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic return to the Barbican for a two-day residency of Shostakovich, Mozart and Mahler joined by star soloists. Performances include:
- Shostakovich 5 (Fri 7 Mar): The cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1
- Mahler 5 (Sat 8 Mar): Mozart’s vivacious concerto written for two siblings, here performed by sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque, alongside Mahler’s Symphony No 5.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Residency
- Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Antonio Pappano-Wynton Marsalis’ Symphony No 4 ‘The Jungle’ (Sat 15 Mar): A blend of jazz, blues and classical music in a collaboration between Barbican’s Resident London Symphony Orchestra and the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, The Democracy! Suite (Sun 16 Mar): The European Premiere of The Democracy! Suite as well as a selection drawn from the JLCO’s vast canon of jazz masterworks.
CINEMA
Masterpieces of the Iranian New Wave (Tue 4–Tue 25 Feb): Alongside London’s most exciting premieres and exclusive curated screenings, a stunning showcase of nine ground-breaking films that emerged from Cinema-ye Motafavet, or Iranian New Wave, the grassroots movement in Iranian documentary and fiction filmmaking.
BARBICAN ARCHITECTURE TOURS
Running daily, Barbican’s 90-minute Architecture Tours cover the vast, bold and brutal Barbican estate. Led by expert guides, the tour covers the Barbican Centre and surrounding Brutalist estate, exploring the site’s little-known nooks and crannies, venturing through highwalks, leafy courts and sweeping crescents, giving visitors an insight into the vision and ambition behind the complex’s design and its past, present and future.
Devyani Saltzman, Director of Arts & Participation at the Barbican, said:, I’m delighted to invite our audiences to join us to celebrate the beauty of everyday life, represented in the work of American painter Noah Davis, through our Spring programme. Our extensive Concrete Garden programme, which takes inspiration from Noah Davis’s ethos of making arts accessible to everyone and themes from Citra Sasmita’s Curve commission, invites us to look at the transformative power of gathering. Elsewhere in the Centre, we’re delighted to host Cate Blanchett’s much awaited return to our stages, welcome scores of artists and orchestras kicking off our richly curated programme and invite everyone to retreat from the noise of the city and find peace among the greenery of our own urban oasis, the Barbican Conservatory. There is just so much in the programme this Spring, so come and experience moments of growth, renewal, discovery, and transformation with us.”
For the Barbican’s full Spring 2025 programme, follow the link to the page.
CONCRETE GARDEN PROGRAMME
TALKS & PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Into Eternal Land
Tue 4 Feb, 7pm
The Curve
FREE
Artist Citra Sasmita and Barbican curator Lotte Johnson talk about the thinking and inspiration behind Into Eternal Land, Citra’s first major UK exhibition. The artist will discuss the process and story behind creating a sensory world for her Barbican commission, as well as her practice in Indonesia.
Somatic Cosmologies: An in-conversation event
Sun 9 Feb, 12pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £8-£15
A conversation on how mapping the body can help us to understand and even change the world. Drawing on themes from Citra Sasmita’s exhibition Into Eternal Land, a panel of poets and writers come together to discuss to consider the body as world.
This panel will look inwards at physical experience such as pain, loss, trauma and how the body keeps the score – and examine how this is translated into art and language and mediated through those trying to find articulation for lived experience, and why it’s important, particularly in pointing to broader societal issues around how we show up in the world.
Looking through the lens of feminism, bodily knowledges and ancestral memory, we host an intersectional discussion on how the body is a contested territory, and how dreaming, ritual and myth allow us to understand the social body and consciously transform the world around us. Citra Sasmita’s Into Eternal Land is on display in The Curve from Thu 30 Jan–Mon 21 Apr.
A ticket to this event also gives access to the Conservatory on Sun 9 Feb, a day of pop-up events nestled among the plants in Barbican’s living, breathing conservatory.
Sun 9 Feb, 2.30pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £8-£15
Chaired by Barbican Creative Collaboration producer Susanna Davies-Crook, guest speakers Season Butler, Chloe Aridjis, Sarah Shin, and Sammy Lee explore feminist, queer and speculative strategies for envisioning how we might re-make our world through storytelling, gaming and worldbuilding. The panel discusses Steering the Craft – Ursula K. Le Guin’s carrier bag of the tools of a writer’s craft: how, and why, to write – and the surrealist dream worlds of Leonora Carrington and Chloe Aridjis.
The panellists will present a window onto their worlds and unpack the importance of imagination for future worlds.
Sammy Lee and Sarah Shin also present a preview of their mythical game world, Mirror: The Mountain. Through non-linear storytelling drawing on the archetypes of the tarot, Mirror: The Mountain plays among memory, mythology and the entanglement of mind and cosmos.
Presented by the Barbican’s Creative Collaboration team in partnership with Silver Press.
A ticket to this event also gives access to the Conservatory on Sun 9 Feb for a day of pop-up events nestled among the plants in Barbican’s living, breathing conservatory.
Thu 13 Feb, 4.30pm
Fountain Room and Art Gallery
Free
Considered to be one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years, Noah Davis was motivated by the desire to ‘represent the people around me’. Drawing from anonymous photography, personal archives, film, art history and his imagination, his paintings reveal a deep feeling for humanity and the emotional textures of the everyday.
This event includes free entry to the Noah Davis exhibition with an introduction from a member of our curatorial team. There’ll be an opportunity to meet and connect with fellow educators, and to find out more about our schools programmes. Plus, our dedicated team will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about bringing your learners along to the exhibition.
Tickets are free but must be booked in advance by emailing schools@barbican.org.uk. Light refreshments will be provided.
When Artists Curate: Noah Davis and the Artist-Curator
Wed 26 Feb, 7pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £25
Artists Alvaro Barrington and Allison Katz join writer and podcaster Helen Molesworth for a panel discussion moderated by art historian Dorothy Price, inspired by the work of Noah Davis.
What does it mean for an artist to curate? In 2012, Noah Davis co-founded the Underground Museum in Los Angeles, converting four shopfronts into an arts centre that was free and open to all. A partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles allowed him to devise and curate 18 exhibitions using the museum’s collection, realising one in his lifetime and leaving detailed instructions for the remainder. Reflecting on their own activities as artists and curators, this panel will think through the role of the artist-curator in dialogue with Davis’s curatorial activities.
Claudia Rankine: New Approaches to Autobiography
Thu 27 Mar, 7pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £25
American poet and playwright Claudia Rankine examines the shifting terms of autobiography in contemporary Black artmaking.
In this talk, Rankine traces an impetus in Black art that moves away from direct representations of trauma to depictions of community and the intimacies of daily life. Touching on the work of American artists Noah Davis, Arthur Jafa and Jennifer Packer, she asks what it means for art to resist, rather than represent, instances of violence as it addresses life in all its complex richness.
Jason Moran on Noah Davis and music making
Thu 8 May, 7pm
Barbican Art Gallery
Tickets £22
American jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran explores different contexts for music making, taking inspiration from the paintings of Noah Davis.
Through his activities as an artist, curator and community builder, Los Angeles-based artist Noah Davis sought to make culture more accessible to audiences outside of institutional spaces. He captures this sentiment in his 2014 series of paintings Pueblo del Rio, which places dancers and musicians in the streets of the titular housing project in Los Angeles. Taking these paintings as a starting point, Moran considers what it might mean to relocate music making outside of the concert hall, and how this might give way to the generative possibilities of ‘composing from life.’
Jason Moran will also give a special one-off concert inspired by Noah Davis’s paintings at Milton Court Concert Hall on Fri 9 May.
Black Worlding: In Conversation with Jenn Nkiru and special guests
Sun 11 May, 12.30pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £8-£15
Artist and director Jenn Nkiru alongside other artists, musicians and cultural thinkers for a talk about intersectional creativity and ‘Black Worlding’.
A ticket to this event also gives access to the Concrete Garden event Imagining Worlds on Sun 9 Feb, a day of pop-up readings, live events and workshops, nestled among the plants in our living, breathing conservatory. Full line up and tickets for this event will be available soon.
Listening to Images: In conversation with Tina M. Campt and special guests
Sun 11 May, 2.30pm
Frobisher Auditorium 1
Tickets £8-£15
A series of talks, workshops and performances that takes Tina M Campt’s proposition of ‘listening to images’ as a jumping off point for creative responses. Full line up and tickets for this event will be available soon.
WORKSHOPS
Season Butler Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop
Sun 9 Feb, 5pm
Barbican Conservatory
Tickets £8-£15
Downfall: It’s over. An empire falls, a tree is felled and spores disperse. Season Butler leads a workshop about focus, tension, action and anticipation.
Storytelling has often been a process of gathering, accumulation and re-articulation, borrowing and building essences which we spin and slant in our changing contexts. In this session, participants will harvest each other histories and share the stories that we’ve kept close, using those as the germ to create something new, adding your own version to the story’s story.
Participants will be guided through a series of exercises centred on an event that fundamentally changes how a character sees the world. They will think about the ways of showing the relationship between internal and external worlds, the political and the personal, technologies and the body – through the lens of a significant story beat.
What participants write in this session might for a draft ending or starting point that they can build a story around.
Home: Figure and Portrait Drawing Workshops
Wed 12 Feb—Wed 16 Apr, 6.30pm
Creative Collaboration Studio
Tickets: £5-£8
Over the course of 10 sessions, led by sonic and visual artist Honey Williams, participants will be encouraged to share their personal stories and narratives about their home while developing their figure and portrait drawing skills. Inspired by themes in Noah Davis’ exhibition currently on display in our Art Gallery, participants will draw upon a range of techniques, from sketching to photorealism.
Artists will be encouraged to share their work as part of a community exhibition open to the public from Apr 2025. Honey Williams is an artist and graphic designer whose work explores the themes of identity, culture and social justice. Celebrated for her impactful visual art and music, Williams’ diverse practice includes painting, illustration, sound design, DJing and more.
These sessions take place between 6.30pm to 9pm every Wednesday between 12 Feb – 16 Apr. To get the most out of these sessions, participants are encouraged to attend regularly as they will be developing work to display in a community exhibition that will be open to the public in Apr 2025.
With Abdul Shyllon and Rachel Huggins
Sessions Thu 13 Feb—Thu 24 Apr, 6.30pm
Over the course of 10 weeks, Rachel and Abdul will teach participants to sing a range of musical styles, including fresh reworkings of pop, soul, gospel, reggae, house and classical music, before sharing your work in front of an audience at an end of term performance in the Barbican’s Level G Foyers.
The Barbican Community Choir is a new initiative that’s led by Rachel Huggins, singer, songwriter and two-time finalist in the BBC’s Gospel Choir of the Year competition, and Abdul Shyllon, a singer, songwriter and composer whose work spans across, music, film, and theatre.
Choir sessions will take place between 6.30 pm and 9pm every Thursday 13 – 24 Apr. To get the most out of this experience, choir singers are encouraged to attend regularly. Choir singers will be invited to perform as part of an end term performance for invited guests on Thu 1 May at 6.30pm. The weekly choir sessions will take place in either Frobisher Rooms on Level 4 or the Fountain Room on Level G. Choir singers will be contacted before each session with confirmation of that week’s venue.
Home: Family Drawing Workshops
With Honey Williams
Mon 7—Sat 12 Apr, 10 am – 1 pm| 2 pm – 5pm
Fountain Room
Free but ticketed
A series of creative workshops for the whole family led by sonic and visual artist Honey Williams. Inspired by themes found in the Noah Davis exhibition, participants will be encouraged to create a home or family portraits through a range of visual arts activities and styles. With a total of 12 sessions taking place between Mon 7 and Sat 12 Apr, each workshop will explore the themes of home and family in slightly different ways, so families can return to multiple workshops if they’d like to.
Participants will be encouraged to share their work as part of a community exhibition called Home, open to the public from Apr 2025.
Honey Williams is an artist and graphic designer whose work explores the themes of identity, culture and social justice. Celebrated for her impactful visual art and music, Williams’ diverse practice includes painting, illustration, sound design, DJing and more.
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BARBICAN CONSERVATORY
Building on the success of Ranjani Shettar’s 2023 commission Cloud songs on the horizon, this Spring the Barbican’s blooming Conservatory garden will come alive with conversation, performances and readings fore-fronting creativity, world building, togetherness and the changemaking potential of shared knowledge and the power of community. Over the course of six Sundays and underpinned by four key panel discussions, we ask how can we come together, look back to look forward, and imagine the world anew?
Sat 25 Jan—Fri 28 Feb 2025
Various times
Free but ticketed
Building on the success of Ranjani Shettar’s 2023 commission Cloud songs on the horizon, this Spring the Barbican’s blooming Conservatory garden is open for the public until 11pm on Fridays and 8pm on Sundays. This lush, green oasis is a serene space to simply unwind among 1,500 species of plants in the heart of the City, meet and have a drink to connect with friends, or to enjoy a series of all-day creative events featuring talks, workshops, and performances that ask questions about our place in the world, in nature, amongst others, and in time. Visit the website for more information and to book a free ticket.
Concrete Garden: Imagining Worlds
Sun 9 Feb, from 12pm
Barbican Conservatory
Free
A day of pop-up readings, live events and workshops, nestled among the plants in Barbican’s living, breathing conservatory.
Through a range of lenses, guests explore how the desire to create through words and worlds ignites the imagination and gives us a sense of meaning, belonging and community. Invited artists, collectives and writers open up their practices and share their processes for an afternoon of events across the Barbican’s conservatory and garden room.
This event is free but ticketed. Visit the event page to secure a ticket and for the full line up for the day.
Young Barbican Takeover Festival
Sun 2 Mar, from 12pm
Across the centre
Tickets £10
The Young Barbican Takeover is an opportunity for London’s young creatives and audience members to spend the day exploring the Barbican and its cultural community.
A packed day of events curated for and by London’s emerging creatives, where artists, musicians, writers and industry professionals take over the Barbican for a day of music, film, literature and workshops. Alongside live performances, there will be space for young creatives to meet and engage with creative industry professionals and emerging talent.
Visitors to the day are invited to nestle into the plants of the conservatory to listen to the Barbican Young Poets, bed down in the cinema for an afternoon of films curated by Barbican Young Film Programmers’ alumni, head to the pop-up stage on Level G for live music acts or simply pop by for a talk or and hang out for the whole day.
A £10 festival wristband gives access to all workshops, talks and other events at no additional cost. Follow the link to the event page for a full list of events.
Young Barbican is a scheme designed to inspire young audiences. Anyone aged 14-25 can join Young Barbican for free and get access to discounted tickets on unmissable art, entertainment, food and shopping.
Concrete Garden: Fertile Ground
Sun 23 Mar, from 12pm
Barbican Conservatory
Free
A day of readings, talks and workshops on plants and fertile ground in Barbican’s tropical oasis, with a line-up of theorists, artists and collectives discussing the origins of life and how we look after it, from workshops about compost to an exploration of Gaia theory, conversations around allotments and DIY workshops on making plants grow.
Touching upon microbiology, anthropocentrism, animism, growth, land, gardening and the examination of cosmic inter-reliance, the sessions ask us to consider the cycle of give and take in relation to the earth’s natural resources and look towards global strategies for care, community and climate awareness that nurture growth and sustainability.
This event is free but ticketed. Visit the event page to secure a ticket and for the full line up for the day.
Concrete Garden: Experiments in Utopia
Sun 27 Apr, from 12pm
Barbican Conservatory
Free
A day of talks, performances and workshops taking place in Barbican’s iconic Conservatory centred around intentional community building. The programme will explore methods of fostering collectivity and ecological connection through the collective practices of dance, music, art-making, design & communal living.
Using a broad definition of Intentional Community across location based co-housing, radical arts collectives and digital communities, we explore topics and philosophies ranging from healing biotopes, free parties & rave culture, polyamorous love, the solidarity economy & decolonising plant relationality. Taking learnings from a lineage of intentional communities, the multidisciplinary programme will also contemplate new structures for speculative collective futures.
This event is free but ticketed. Visit the event page to secure a ticket and for the full line up for the day.
Sun 4 May, from 12pm
Barbican Conservatory
Free
A day of talks and workshops celebrating the traditional springtime festival in Barbican’s iconic conservatory. From discussions about wellness to sessions on flower arranging, audiences are invited to mark May Day and the coming of the light among the thriving plants and growth.
This event is free but ticketed. Visit the event page to secure a ticket and for the full line up for the day.
Concrete Garden: Listening to Images
Sun 11 May, from 12pm
Barbican Conservatory
Free but ticketed
A day of pop-up readings, discussions, performances and workshops centred around Tina Campt‘s idea of ‘listening to images’. Co-curated by Susanna Davies-Crook and Tina M. Campt, this day of events will explore archives and personal histories, as well as sonic and contextual ephemera, creating a space for collective reflection on the significance of the personal as political and the archive as a powerful site of transformation.
Performers include poet and musician James Massiah. This event is free but ticketed. Visit the event page to secure a ticket and for the full line up for the day.
FILM PROGRAMME
Pather Panchali (U)
India 1957, dir Satyajit Ray, 120 min
Part of Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land
Mon 10 Feb, 6.10pm
Cinema 3
Tickets £5-£13
Coinciding with Citra Sasmita’s Into Eternal Land, the artist has selected Satyajit Ray’s celebrated debut film Pather Panchali. Set in rural Bengal, this deeply moving tale follows the young Apu and his family as they navigate the trials of poverty and loss.
Adapted from Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel, Ray’s film is a lyrical exploration of innocence, survival, and the beauty of everyday life. With stunning cinematography, a haunting score by Ravi Shankar, and an unforgettable portrayal of family bonds, Pather Panchali remains one of the most influential films in world cinema.
Part of Noah Davis Film Programme
US 1984, dir Albert Magnoli, 101min.
Wed 12 Mar, 6.15pm
Cinema 1
Tickets £5-£13
Prince’s 1984 cultural touchstone blending music, drama, and bold visual storytelling.
This screening of Prince’s Purple Rain (1984) pays tribute to Noah Davis’s deep love for the film, which he famously showcased at his visionary Underground Museum.
Purple Rain follows the journey of ‘The Kid’, a talented but troubled musician finding his voice amid personal and creative struggles. Davis often drew inspiration from Purple Rain, not only for its electrifying performances and vibrant aesthetic but also for its celebration of individuality and artistic ambition.
Presented in sync with our Noah Davis exhibition, this screening highlights the profound influence of Purple Rain on Davis’s work, particularly his creation of The Purple Garden, an homage to Prince’s legacy and the transformative power of art.
This screening is one of three films that feature as part of the Noah Davis public programme. These films were chosen as they reflect on themes found in the Noah Davis exhibition. Prince’s Purple Rain was a film deeply loved by Davis and one that had a profound impact on his life and art. Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Imitation of Life deals with identity, aspiration and representation, recurring motifs in Davis’ paintings. Lastly, Delusions of Grandeur is a mixed programme of films screening as an audio-visual response to the artist’s work.
1959 US, dir Douglas Sirk, 125min
Part of Noah Davis Film Programme
Sat 22 Mar, 3.20pm
Cinema 1
Tickets £5-£13
Douglas Sirk’s 1959 melodrama based on Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel about two single mothers, one black, one white, striving together in a man’s world.
This screening of Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959) is presented in response to Noah Davis’s exhibition ‘Imitation of Wealth’, creating a dialogue between film and art about themes of identity, aspiration, and representation.
Sirk’s lush melodrama examines the intersecting lives of two women—one Black and one white—and their daughters, navigating the complexities of race, class, and familial sacrifice. The film’s exploration of constructed identities and societal expectations resonates with Davis’s work, which reimagines illusions of prosperity and cultural symbolism as layered narratives about value and visibility.
This screening invites audiences to consider how both Davis and Sirk use their respective mediums to critique systems of representation and question the ways we assign meaning to art, labour, and life.
This screening is one of three films that feature as part of the Noah Davis public programme. These films were chosen as they reflect on themes found in the Noah Davis exhibition. Prince’s Purple Rain was a film deeply loved by Davis and one that had a profound impact on his life and art. Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Imitation of Life deals with identity, aspiration and representation, recurring motifs in Davis’ paintings. Lastly, Delusions of Grandeur is a mixed programme of films screening as an audio-visual response to the artist’s work.
Delusions of Grandeur: An audio-visual response to Noah Davis (15*)
Dir various
Part of Noah Davis Film Programme
Thu 3 Apr, 6.30pm
Cinema 3
Tickets £5-£13
Part of the Noah Davis Film Programme, Delusions of Grandeur is a series of films that explore the monumental within the everyday, confronting memory, community, and identity with intimacy and innovation taking inspiration from Noah Davis’s Delusions of Grandeur.
This presentation of short films, from the 1960s to the present day draw inspiration from Noah Davis’s Delusions of Grandeur, a painting that captures a small child staring up at an impossibly large staircase—a poignant metaphor for ambition, creativity, and the leap of faith required to navigate life’s uncertainties.
Just as Delusions of Grandeur elevates a child’s contemplation to a universal reflection on ambition and creativity, these films reveal the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary, each a step toward understanding the monumental layers of human experience.
Programme include: Harmonica (1971), Larry Gottheim, 16mm, colour, sound, 10.5 minutes; Chelsea Drive (2025) Kevin Jerome Everson & Claudrena Harold, 4 minutes; By the Lake (1986) Chick Strand, 10 minutes; Reluctantly Queer(2016) Akosua Adoma Owusu, 9 minutes; On Sunday (2023) Paige Taul + olula negre, 7 minutes; Latifah And Himli’s Nomadic Uncle (1992) Alnoor Dewshi, UK, 17 minutes; When It Rains (1995) Charles Burnett, 13 minutes; Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967) Edward Owens, 6 minutes.
This screening is one of three films that feature as part of the Noah Davis public programme. These films were chosen as they reflect on themes found in the Noah Davis exhibition. Prince’s Purple Rain was a film deeply loved by Davis and one that had a profound impact on his life and art. Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Imitation of Life deals with identity, aspiration and representation, recurring motifs in Davis’ paintings. Lastly, Delusions of Grandeur is a mixed programme of films screening as an audio-visual response to the artist’s work.
EXHIBITION TOURS
Noah Davis: Exhibition Tour with Curatorial Assistant Kitty Gurnos-Davies
Thu 6 Mar, 6.30pm
Art Gallery
Tickets £5-£18
Curatorial Assistant Kitty Gurnos-Davies takes visitors on a tour of the exhibition that highlights how Davis explored the emotional textures of everyday life through his artmaking.
Noah Davis believed that ‘painting does something to your soul that nothing else can.’ Celebrating the late artist’s expansive creativity, this debut retrospective showcases Noah Davis as one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years.
Noah Davis: Exhibition Tour with Curator Wells Fray-Smith
Thu 20 Mar, 6.30pm
Art Gallery
Tickets £5-£18
For this exhibition tour, Curator Wells Fray-Smith selects some of her favourite works in the exhibition and how Davis referenced and defied his art historical heroes.
Noah Davis was obsessed with the history of painting, noting how he was influenced by ‘Peter Doig, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, who all created their own language for their work.’ Celebrating the late artist’s expansive creativity, this debut retrospective showcases Noah Davis as one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years.
Noah Davis: Exhibition Tour with Curatorial Assistant Kitty Gurnos-Davies
Thu 10 Apr, 6.30pm
Art Gallery
Tickets £5-£18
Curatorial Assistant Kitty Gurnos-Davies takes visitors on a tour of the exhibition that charts Davis’s work as a painter, curator and community builder. Noah Davis wanted to ‘change the way that people view art, the way people buy art, the way people make art.’ Celebrating the late artist’s expansive creativity, this debut retrospective showcases Noah Davis as one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years.
Noah Davis: Exhibition Tour with Curator Wells Fray-Smith
Thu 24 Apr, 6.30pm
Art Gallery
Tickets £5-£18
Curator Wells Fray-Smith takes visitors on an exhibition tour highlighting Davis’s use of found photography and images of friends and family as source material for his exuberant paintings of everyday life.
Noah Davis believed that his pictures had a ‘responsibility to represent the people around me.’ Celebrating the late artist’s expansive creativity, this debut retrospective showcases Noah Davis as one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years.
PERFORMANCES
Fri 21 Mar, 7.30pm
Milton Court Concert Hall
Tickets £5-£15
F*Choir, a 60-strong queer-led ensemble redefining choral singing with bold, high-energy performances, bring a programme celebrating liberation, inclusivity, and the magic of collective voices to the Barbican.
In March 2025, the groundbreaking community choir will present an evening of full-bodied, percussive earworms. Founded by composer Jenny Moore, the ensemble re-frames choral music through the lens of gender, sexuality, freedom, and rage into a vibrant collective experience.
F*Choir defies tradition, replacing sheet music and auditions with dynamic, innovative arrangements of works spanning Meredith Monk, Lauryn Hill, and Beverley Glenn Copeland. The result is visceral and powerful – both sonically and socially. Voices resonate with raw power, reimagining the possibilities of choral music.
Having captivated audiences across the UK and beyond, F*Choir has performed sold out gigs at iconic venues such as EartH Hackney, Bishopsgate Institute, Wellcome Collection and the MOTH Club. Their work has also been featured on BBC3’s Late Junction and in The Guardian.
Barbican Young Poets with Claudia Rankine
Fri 28 Mar, 7pm
Barbican Art Gallery
Tickets £15-£22
Barbican Young Poets alumni present a special performance inspired by the work of Noah Davis, in collaboration with poet Claudia Rankine.
Recognised as one of the most original and uncanny painters to emerge in recent years, Noah Davis’ paintings explore a range of Black life. At this evening of poetry readings and performances, the Barbican Young Poets present work written in response to Davis’ paintings currently on display in our Art Gallery, as well as taking inspiration from the poems and essays of Claudia Rankine.
The event begins with a visit to the Noah Davis exhibition, followed by a reception in the Garden Room. Audiences will then return to the Gallery for performances with an introduction by Claudia Rankine.
Part of the Barbican Young Creatives programme, Barbican Young Poets is a community and artist development initiative for people who want to explore what’s possible for their poetry and creative expression, fostering a collective of poets to become the next generation of powerful creative voices.
Listening Session: George Riley and special guests
Tue 1 April, 7pm
Barbican Art Gallery
Tickets £7-£22
An evening of sound and music in response to Noah Davis’s paintings. Full line up and tickets for this event will be available soon.
Barbican Young Poets
Wed 9 Apr, 7pm
The Curve
Free but ticketed
Barbican Young Poets present an evening of performances and readings inspired by Citra Sasmita’s exhibition, Into Eternal Land.
In her first solo UK exhibition, Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita explores ancestral memory, ritual and migration in a sensory journey through painting, installation, embroidery and scent. At this event, guests will be invited to step inside the exhibition in The Curve to take in Sasmita’s work before hearing the poets’ responses within the space.
Barbican Young Poets is a community and artist development initiative for people who want to explore what’s possible for their poetry and creative expression, fostering a collective of poets to become the next generation of powerful creative voices.
Listening Session: Hannah Catherine Jones and the Chiron Choir
In response to Noah Davis
Tue 15 Apr, 7pm
Barbican Art Gallery
Led by Hannah Catherine Jones, Chiron Choir present a live set of somatic chants, vocal improvisations and compositions.
Drawing upon themes in the Noah Davis exhibition in our gallery, Chiron Choir create a conversation between Davis’ work and the site of his first retrospective in London, linking Arlington Heights and the Barbican Centre.
They amplify the shared musical vocabularies traversing the UK and the US, through Black British and Black American female composers, including Alice Coltrane.
The event starts with an introduction by Hannah Catherine Jones.
Liminal Chords: A Dreamscape in Verse & Sound
MA.MOYO (Belinda Zhawi) + Friends
Wednesday 23 April, 7:30pm
Barbican Art Gallery
Tickets £20 plus booking fee
Taking place amidst the Noah Davis exhibition in the Barbican Art Gallery, this special performance by poet and sound artist MA.MOYO (Belinda Zhawi) responds to the radical work and philosophy of the visionary artist.
MA.MOYO is joined by harpist and beatmaker Marysia Osu and vocalist Roxanne Tataei for an interdisciplinary performance blending poetry, vocal textures, and harp with real-time effects. Together, they explore the emotive, uncanny landscapes of Davis’ art, delving into the spaces between dreams and lucidity, joy and melancholy, individuality and community.
A Zimbabwean-born, London and Marseille-based artist, Zhawi uses the moniker MA.MOYO to experiment with the interplay of text and sound, often collaborating with musicians from South East London’s vibrant jazz and beat-making scene. Her work reflects on themes of African diaspora narratives, history, and community.
This evocative performance celebrates creativity as a vehicle for connection, echoing Davis’ artistic vision and inviting audiences into a shared space of reflection and discovery.
Fri 9 May, 7.30pm
Milton Court Concert Hall
Tickets £5-£25
Acclaimed pianist Jason Moran gives a special one-off concert inspired by Noah Davis’s paintings. Inspired by the late artist Noah Davis – the subject of Barbican’s major exhibition this Spring, composer and jazz pianist Jason Moran will perform a piano recital in which he creates a musical response to Davis’s paintings, with major influence from Pueblo del Rio: Concerto.
In this painting, Davis places a grand piano outside at the iconic Pueblo del Rio Los Angeles housing project, signifying that this concert is open to all. As the work implies, it is the music that emerged in spaces like this housing project that formed the roots of what became canon.
Moran says ‘I felt a link to Thelonious Monk’s Evidence in which he used the sound of a basketball game as the inspiration for his sound. That idea of using the chaos and rhythm of the world around you feels so connected to Noah’s ability to distil life’s complexities onto a canvas.’
Jason Moran is also doing a separately ticketed talk in the Art Gallery on Thu 8 May, 7pm titled Talk: Jason Moran on Noah Davis and music making.