Our purpose and values
Our purpose and values expresses why we do what we do. All of our activities are designed to help deliver our purpose:
- We are London’s Creative Catalyst for arts, curiosity and enterprise.
- We spark creative possibilities and transformation for artists, audiences and communities – to inspire, connect and provoke debate.
- We are the place to be in this destination city, where everyone is welcome. Our impact is felt far outside our walls and ripples beyond the experiences we offer - locally, nationally and internationally.
Our values express how we work. We aim to live our values every day:
Inclusive, Sustainable, Connected, Daring, Joyful
Our curated programme
We aim to provide an enriching, dynamic, relevant, and sometimes provocative artistic programme. We design our programme to reflect and attract an audience that represents the full diversity of London. We also aim to host the broadest range of artists and thinkers, representing the widest possible variety of world views and human experiences.
Our programme is carefully curated to achieve these objectives, and we collaborate with thousands of different artistic partners – individuals and organisations – every year. We constantly receive more proposals and ideas than we are able to host, but we aim to balance our programme across each year, prioritised through the lens of our Audience Strategy.
We do not shy away from topics that may be sensitive or controversial; indeed, platforming this kind of work is essential to our purpose. We take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that when we present work on such topics, we do so with necessary care and preparation so that everybody – artists, audiences and our staff – feels welcome and is safe, and so that these events have the best chance of building understanding, enabling constructive debate, countering the forces of polarisation, inspiring change and ultimately bringing communities together.
We strongly believe in the importance of protecting and maintaining artistic freedom and freedom of expression. Everybody who appears at the Barbican is here because of their artistic work and because we believe they will interest and appeal to audiences. Our relationship with them does not mean we support their personal or political views, but we do support their right to express them, in the interests of furthering our purpose. Although we are governed by the City of London Corporation, all decisions around our artistic programme are taken by the Barbican independently.
As well as our artistic programme, we regularly host conferences, graduations, meetings and other business and social events in our venues, the income from which directly supports our arts and learning activities. These are private and corporate events that do not form part of our public programme.
We do not tolerate hate speech, discrimination or harassment and expect everybody, whether working here or visiting, to act in line with our Zero Tolerance Statement, and will take action if anybody does not – including potentially by not working with them again.
Our political position
In line with our purpose and values we have, and are committed to maintaining, a varied and daring events programme – one which inspires, connects and provokes debate.
Artists play a crucial role in reflecting, commenting on and responding to the issues of the day, including subjects that are urgent, complex or divisive. Cultural institutions such as the Barbican have a responsibility to provide artists – particularly those who may have been marginalised – with a platform to do so.
Our programming therefore often deals with political and social topics, and we aim to host the broadest and most diverse range of artists and thinkers, representing the widest possible range of world views and human experiences. To enable this, and also because we are a publicly funded arts organisation, all of our actions and statements are grounded in our purpose, values and programme. Although we may all have individual views, as an organisation we do not campaign on global or party-political issues.
How we’re funded
We deliver our world-class arts and participation programmes through a mixed-funding model. Our sources of revenue include:
- Core support from the City of London Corporation, our principal funder
- Ticket sales for our thousands of events each year
- Private venue hire and events
- Raised income from grants and donations
- Individual memberships and patronages, and corporate memberships, sponsorships and partnerships
- Touring exhibitions
- Our bars and restaurants, and shops
The generosity of individuals, private sector businesses and the grant-making community have an important role to play in advancing our purpose and supporting our arts and participation programmes. We welcome partnerships and associations with people and organisations who share our love for the arts and can help us achieve our goals, and we are grateful to them.
We conduct due diligence on the sources of significant grants, donations and sponsorships, and on potential commercial and corporate partners. We work in line with our Code of Ethics, which sets out that we will actively seek sustainable sources of income to fund our arts and learning activities, while also carefully considering potential sources of income and avoiding accepting funds from sources that could compromise the delivery of our purpose or undermine public trust.
Our fundraising activities are supported by the Barbican Centre Trust.
Code of Ethics
We are in an important position of trust – with our audiences, artists, communities, donors, partners, sponsors, and funders, and with our own team. We must therefore make sound ethical decisions in all areas of our work to maintain this trust. We use our Code of Ethics to guide our decision-making, and to help recognise and resolve ethical issues and conflicts.
Modern slavery
Read the City of London Corporation's Modern Slavery Statement.
