Image: Barbican Centre, London
The Barbican Centre in London is launching ‘Project a Black Planet: A Season of Art and Culture’ on 8 July, a programme that brings together art, cinema, music and talks around Pan-Africanism. The season runs through 6 September and is anchored by the centre’s major summer exhibition, ‘Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica’, which the Barbican describes as looking at the impact of Pan-Africanism on artistic and cultural production from the 1920s to the present.
The season appears across the Barbican’s programme rather than in a single strand. Its art offering is presented alongside a cinema series, while related talks and a music event extend the theme into live performance and discussion. The centre’s own website lists the exhibition under Art & design, the film programme under Cinema, and the wider season as a cross-disciplinary project celebrating the influence of Pan-Africanism with art, cinema, music, talks and more.
At the centre of the season is the exhibition ‘Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica’, marked on the Barbican site as running from 11 June to 6 September 2026. The newsletter message sent by the institution also highlights it as the major summer exhibition until 6 September. The material provided does not give curator names, artist lists or a detailed exhibition checklist, but it does make clear that the show is framed as a survey of Pan-Africanism’s effect on artistic and cultural production across a broad historical span.
The season’s related events include ‘Project a Black Planet: Film’, running from 8 July to 6 September, described as a cinema season tracing Pan-African ideas through landmark films, rare documentaries and experimental works. The Barbican also points to ‘Sammy Baloji: Le Père Sauvage – A Poetic Memento of K(C)ongo’, a live performance of music, sound and imagery on 5 July that draws on the histories and ongoing legacies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the centre, the work uses archival material alongside contemporary visuals and sound, and reflects on memory, extraction and cultural inheritance.
Two talks are listed as part of the broader July programme tied to the season. ‘Listening Session: Generation(s) of Panafrica – An Ode to Street Soul’ takes place on 3 July, with father and son Toyin and Nate Agbetu discussing Street Soul, politics and activism, and inviting audiences to see the exhibition on the same day. ‘Composing Sonic Futures’ follows on 15 July, bringing DJ and curator JJESS into conversation with Roxanne Tataei, THABO and Ragz Originale about music as a world-building tool.
The Barbican is presenting the season during a busy summer in its art, cinema and theatre programme, but the Pan-Africanism project is clearly singled out as a major through-line. The institution’s homepage also lists related summer titles such as ‘In Other Worlds’ and the theatre premiere of ‘Death Note: The Musical’, while the ‘Project a Black Planet’ strand is positioned as one of the centre’s headline offerings for the season.
Tickets are on sale now, and the programme runs at the Barbican Centre in London from 8 July to 6 September, with the exhibition ‘Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica’ continuing until 6 September 2026.
