This summer, the Barbican presents Project a Black Planet, a major season celebrating the rich influence of Pan-Africanism on contemporary arts and culture. From June to September 2026, more than 30 events across art, cinema, music, performance, talks, and more will unfold throughout the Centre, bringing together artists, thinkers, and communities from across the African continent and its global diasporas.
Barbican recently announced further Project a Black Planet programming co-curated with Tobi Kyeremateng and Jason ‘Scully’ Kavuma. Running throughout the summer, the events and gatherings announced today include listening sessions, workshops, talks, a concert and a performance series that respond to ideas in the Project a Black Planet season through four themes: Rituals, Nationhood, Technology and Archive.
Taking over iconic Barbican spaces including the Conservatory and Gallery, this additional programming complements previously announced events spanning music, visual art, cinema and more – including the internationally-touring Projec
Karena Johnson, Barbican Head of Creative Collaboration and Learning, says: “I’m proud to share our programme for Project a Black Planet this summer – an extraordinary season which celebrates the rich influence of Pan-Africanism on contemporary arts and culture with a London flavour. The aim with our programme is to complement the exhibition with opportunities to engage in wide range of activities which offer visitors joyful, welcoming, and stimulating collective spaces for discussion, sharing and celebration.”
Coined around 1900, Pan-Africanism is popularly understood as an umbrella term for political and philosophical movements advocating for self-determination, anti-colonial resistance, and transnational solidarity among peoples of African descent. The season at the Barbican will explore how these ideas have resonated across artforms and geographies, celebrating legacies ranging from Creole culture in Cape Verde and Black Rights in the USA to the liberation philosophies of reggae and dub rooted in the Caribbean.
Experiments – new commissions, new concepts, and new experiences responding to the themes of the Project a Black Planet season
In The Pit, ęmí: freedomsong (2025) is an audio-visual performance installation created by artist duo Rohan Ayinde and Tayo Rapoport in collaboration with curator Zarina Rossheart and in dialogue with bell hooks’ All About Love and Camille Sapara Barton’s Tending Grief. Reflecting on the Yoruba concept of ęmí (the breath that animates life) and inspired by the strength of the Palestinian struggle for dignity and self-determination, freedomson
At the heart of the work is a ritual led by Barton and singer-songwriter anaiis, in which six vocalists – anaiis, Tawiah, Douniah, Bint Mbareh, Amina Gichinga, and Roxanne Tataei – were invited to process their grief and transform it into love through song. Featuring live action by musicians, vocalists, movement and spoken word artists, the audience will step into an immersive visual and sonic world that looks to alchemize grief into a shared language of love, protest, and possibility.
In the Barbican Hall, celebrate Pan-Africanism through rhythm, lineage and sound with artists responding to the Barbican’s visual arts exhibition and summer season at Panafrica in Rhythm, co-hosted by drummer Moses Boyd and DJ and presenter Jamz Supernova. In partnership with The Oracle Collective, this concert invites a host of artists to respond to Project a Black Planet, choosing artworks featured in the Barbican exhibition which reflect their perspective of Pan-Africanism.
Each artist will bring a one-off ensemble to the Barbican Hall for a performance exploring the wide-ranging UK experiences of Pan-Africanism. Alongside Moses Boyd and Jamz Supernova, featured artists include Asheber & The Afrikan Revolution, Bonita x SLICKnBOBBY Present: Dub vs Cumbia, drummers Jerry Brown and Kwake Bass, South London-based Afro-Punk collective Steam Down & friends, and Jas Kayser Introducing… a special co-curated set between drummer Jas Kayser and a hand-picked emerging drummer, to be announced.
Groundings on a Black Planet transforms the Conservatory for one night only into a live, participatory evening curated by HOUSE OF DREAD, engaging themes of archive, ritual, nationhood and Black life across geographies. Drawing on the work of Walter Rodney, “groundings” is approached as a method of gathering, listening and reasoning together. Through sound, moving image and live interventions, the evening moves between silences, fragments and archival material, inviting audiences to sit within a shared process rather than observe from a distance.
Rounding out the Experiments strand is anyone can dance w/ ORII, the latest instalment in the Barbican’s late-night party series celebrating global sounds shaped by the UK collectives who are championing grassroots diasporic sounds while creating spaces to dance in connected joy. Bringing DJs, live musicians and dancers to the Barbican Level –1 Foyer space until 3am, anyone can dance promises an evening celebrating Pan-Africanism through a multi-disciplinary late-night experience, channelling the ancestral spirit of togetherness through sound.
Conversations – a series exploring ideas on Black art, imagination and liberation
A series of conversations in the Lakeside Room expand the season into opportunities for social gathering and collective remembering and reimagining. Audiences are encouraged to continue the conversation post-talk over small chops provided by Garden of Afruika on the iconic Conservatory Terrace, Level 4.
Technologies for Imagining Otherwise explores the ethical and innovative uses of technology today. The discussion will be chaired by Elijah (Make The Ting) in conversation with creative technologists Lex Fefegha (Future Inventions Lab), Arda Awais (Identity 2.0), and Sara Berkai (Ambessa Play), to explore the possibilities of technology as an imaginative, Pan-Africanist mechanism across the diaspora.
Who Shapes Our Cities? will see social designer AJ Haastrup in conversation with architect and writer Shawn Adams (POoR Collective), photographer and archivist Christian Cassiel (Seed Archives) and author Dr Joy White (Terraformed: Young Black Lives In The Inner City) to explore how communities are creating homegrown methodologies to reclaim and reinvest in the spaces that we shape.
Composing Sonic Futures examines how music and sound have long been instruments of dialogue and information-sharing between communities, building languages to be shared by people all over the world. Join DJ and curator Jjess in conversation with Roxanne Tataei, anaiis and THABO, who share their processes of world-building and creating new realities through music and sound.
Listening Sessions – collective listening sessions deepening our connection to art, politics and freedom through sound
Complementing the Project a Black Planet: The Art & Culture of Panafrica exhibition which sits at the heart of the season, a specially curated strand of listening sessions will invite audiences into the Gallery across three Friday nights to view the exhibition before an opportunity to reflect collectively via a thought-provoking, multi-disciplinary session.
The first session, Everything Is Political: What Is The Future of Panafrica?, hosted by organiser and political commentator Busayo Twins alongside special guests, dissects political speeches, discussions and soundbites by Pan-African activists and leaders to examine how Pan-Africanism relates to our modern day.
A deep listening session between cultural strategist and curator Nate Agbetu and his father, Pan-African activist, filmmaker and musician Toyin Agbetu, Generation(s) of Panafrica explores how politics can be shaped across generations. This moment between a father and son bridges timelines to open up honest conversations around activism, and intergenerational dialogues, underscored by music that moves across generations.
Finally, Project a Black Planet: Album Art Analysis is a session with music curator and researcher, Saige Sounds, and DJ scholar Lynnée Denise, who will lead an examination into the album covers and music that has shaped movements, as shown in the Project a Black Planet: The Art & Culture of Panafrica exhibition.
Workshops – interactive sessions including storytelling, rituals, nourishment and music
A series of workshops rounds out the programming for this season, creating an open space for creativity and community. On consecutive weekends throughout June and July, workshops are curated with audiences of all ages in mind, gathering to explore what the future might look like through a Pan-African lens.
Curated in partnership with The Africa Centre, Stories of Panafrica will act as a stage for reflection and storytelling. Grounded in the African-Caribbean oral histories traditions – with a focus on call & response, drumming, movement, creative writing and making. This approach honours the orality within the African-Caribbean diaspora and practice of communal storytelling, performance, music and dance as a means of recording, analysing and learning from cultural events. The in-conversation will explore the rich history of Pan-African politics, philosophy, and activism through an open discussion with leading visual artists and writers from the Diaspora. The day is open to ages 12+ to enjoy performance, storytelling, workshops and in-conversations, with communal coming together at its heart.
A speculative storytelling workshop led by Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, Dreaming into Being invites participants to step into the role of future-makers and designers. Through guided exercises in speculative storytelling, participants will build original worlds, shaping their landscapes, technologies and histories. By the end of the session, participants will have developed fragments of their own imagined worlds, using storytelling as a tool to question the present and reimagine the future.
In Creating Pan-African Cinema, a creative workshop with Jennifer Lauren Martin, participants are invited to explore methods used across Pan-African cinema to apply to their own personal materials and create a new film project. Drawing from Stuart Hall’s Constituting an Archive and materials from The June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archives, participants will engage with the ‘living archive’ – an unfinished and open-ended process of archiving – to develop imaginative filmmaking processes that can be used across narrative, documentary, and artist moving image. By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with a collective framework and early stages of a film idea, ready to be put into action.
These events join the previously announced Sankofa Carnival Project, which brings participants together in celebration of Carnival’s transnational roots. Across the summer, audiences are invited to step into the vibrant world of Carnival arts with a joyful programme of costume-making led by one of the UK’s most celebrated Carnival innovators, Mahogany Carnival Design and dance workshops by leading African and Caribbean dance fusion specialists IRIE! dance theatre.
Together, these workshops culminate in a Carnival-inspired performance at the Barbican on Saturday 15 August during Barbican’s family weekend festival Play Make Do, where the creative team present new work developed with the workshop participants. Please note, space for the workshops is limited but the performance is open to all.
Project a Black Planet: A Season takes place across the Barbican Centre from 5 June to 6 September 2026.
