PRESS RELEASE | For immediate release: Thursday 10 June 2021
Barbican Stories
A collection of firsthand and witnessed accounts of discrimination at the Barbican Centre
www.barbicanstories.com
Nearly 100 testimonies of racism and discrimination at the Barbican Centre, highlighting the institutional racism that exists at the UK’s largest multi-arts centre.
Worker-led direct action triggered by the Barbican’s inadequate response to Black Lives Matter in June 2020.
Written by the Barbican’s employees of colour and funded by white employees.
Incidents recorded span decades from past industrial actions during the Barbican’s construction in the 60s to current employee accounts during the tumult of the last year.
Published as the Barbican's new Director of Arts and Learning takes up his post.
Physical copies of the book have been sent to the Barbican’s directors, heads of department and selected members of the board.
Barbican Stories is a collection of firsthand and witnessed accounts of racism and discrimination at the Barbican Centre. The book has been written anonymously by current and former Barbican employees from Global Ethnic Majorities. The making of the book was triggered by the Barbican Centre's inadequate response to the Black Lives Matter movement and protests of June 2020. In solidarity, the project is funded by white Barbican staff members and friends.
Barbican Stories is a vessel that ensures that experiences which have typically been suppressed, ignored and isolated from each other are written into history by the very people who have experienced it firsthand. It is a testament, a radical archiving object, and a collective complaint. Barbican Stories presents a narrative of what has happened and continues to happen not just at the Barbican, but across the arts sector and in society. The book spotlights the gaslighting and institutional racism that has blown through the Barbican since they released their BLM statement in June 2020. A year on, not enough has changed.
The book’s publication coincides with the start of the Barbican’s new Director of Arts and Learning’s tenure, a silent protest marking the lost opportunity to hire a candidate for this position of power beyond the usual (or expected) demographic.
Barbican Stories is a 252 page book that contains the following:
2 x Forewords (one for readers who have experienced racism, and one for readers who have not experienced racism)
‘Welcome to the Barbican’ - an essay that looks at radical histories of the Barbican and it’s past industrial actions, from it’s construction in the 60s to union action in 2020
An “About the book” text
98 stories of first hand and witnessed accounts of discrimination at the Barbican written by current and former employees
An institutional racism continuum and timeline that contextualises the making of the book and the institution’s response to Black Lives Matter
The design of Barbican Stories (left) is based on a pre-existing company sanctioned policy book (right) that was written collaboratively by Barbican staff in 2016 called Everything you always wanted to know about the Barbican which contains anecdotes to help new employees navigate the workplace.
A statement from Barbican Stories:
“The Barbican’s working culture is inherently racist. It is insidious and incredibly obvious at the same time. The limited internal work that has been allowed to happen has been hard fought for and driven by the lower levels of the workforce. This work has either been ignored, sidelined or glossed over with anti-racism statements crafted in the interest of upholding white supremacy. This means prioritising the institution over its staff, audiences and artists and continuing to marginalize people for profit.
It is evident that the Barbican, alongside other institutions in the UK and beyond, take the accusation of racism far more seriously than the actual doing and upholding of it. In making this a matter of public interest, we are putting external pressure on the institution and effectively contributing to radical anti-racism work in the sector and beyond. These conversations cannot be controlled by institutions who are incapable of self-led criticism because they are run by people who don’t genuinely believe there is a problem.
We will get nowhere pretending that racism will be solved without radical change. This does not look like: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training, ‘Listen and Learn’ sessions and other cosmetic corporate exercises that take place whilst the same people upholding racist systems are in power.
We could have also created books about sexism and gender discrimination, about ableism and about classism. We invite other organisations to make visible the cultures of discrimination that are perpetuated in their community. It is by bringing these concealed realities to the public sphere, that we can confront and dismantle systems of power together.”
Physical copies of Barbican Stories have been sent to the Barbican’s directors, heads of department and selected members of the board and are being made available to various archives and public records. An edited version of the opening essay Welcome to the Barbican is published on the web browser extension Decolonial Hacker. Informed by decolonial politics at large, Decolonial Hacker dissolves the webpages of institutions to reveal articles that analyse problematic histories and current practices.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Link to website and book: www.barbicanstories.com
Images of the book and a PDF of this press release can be found HERE.
Contact details: storiesbarbican@protonmail.com
Extracts from the ‘Welcome to the Barbican’ essay, Foreword 1, Foreword 2, the About the book section and the Timeline are available for republication.
Decolonial Hacker critically examines cultural institutions, their alliances, interests and behaviour. Born of a desire to entrench more consistent and collective engagement with institutional critique, Decolonial Hacker operates through a web browser extension that “hacks” institutions’ URLs with commissioned criticism, and an online platform that archives these texts. The extension activates when a user logs onto an institution’s website, dissolving their webpage to reveal an article that analyses certain problematics of that place informed by decolonial politics at large – for instance, pillaged colonial objects, funding sources and labour conditions.