Press room

Barbican Art Gallery presents RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology, a major group exhibition surveying the relationship between gender and ecology to identify the systemic links between the oppression of women and the degradation of the planet. 
 
This expansive exhibition brings together photography, film, and installations by nearly 50 international women and gender non-conforming artists whose work is united across decades, continents, and media by an urgent engagement with, and protest against, the ongoing ecological crisis. Platforming work by artists from the Global Majority and Indigenous peoples, RE/SISTERS explores the indivisible bond between environmental and social justice, offering a vision of an equitable society wherein people and planet alike are venerated and treated fairly. 

Please find the full press release here. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks, tours, and events. Check the website for the latest details. 

EVENTS  

In Conversation: JEB (Joan E. Biren) with Charlotte Flint 
Thursday 5 October, 7pm 
Frobisher Auditorium 2 
Tickets: £20, exhibition ticket included / £10 talk only / £5 concessions 

US photographer JEB (Joan E. Biren) discusses her work documenting the women-led peace movement and lesbian culture in the United States from the 1970s onwards, with independent curator and writer Charlotte Flint.  

Movement and Embodiment workshop with Seyi Adelekun  
Sunday 22 October, 1pm 
Conservatory and Garden Room  
Tickets: £10  

A movement and embodiment workshop led by artist Seyi Adelekun to heal ecological grief. We will start the session with an intentional walk around the conservatory. Adelekun’s practice creates work that awakens our ecological awareness, environmental stewardship and spiritual relationship with ourselves and the More-Than-Human world.  

Gallery Tour 
Thursday 26 October, 7pm 
Barbican Art Gallery 
Tickets: £16, exhibition ticket included 

Joycelyn Longdon, founder of Climate in Colour and PhD candidate at Cambridge University explores the role of technology in justice-led tropical forest conservation, as she leads a tour of the exhibition. 

Joyful Militancy and Protest Talks  
Thursday 26 October, 4pm 
Frobisher Auditorium 2
Tickets: £25 

From the creative acts of civil disobedience at Greenham Common to the non-violent protest of the Chipko movement, this afternoon and evening of talks from artists, photographers and academics digs into the past and present of creative feminist dissent. The event includes a panel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the cooperative women’s photography agency Format, featuring founder members Maggie Murray, Brenda Prince, Melanie Friend and Joanne O’Brien talking to Noni Stacey. Followed by a discussion between contemporary artists and thinkers Poulomi Basu, Nina Wakeford, Anna Feigenbaum and exhibition curator, Alona Pardo.  

Gallery Tour 
Thursday 2 November, 7pm 
Barbican Art Gallery 
Tickets: £16, exhibition ticket included 

Alona Pardo, curator of RE/SISTERS, leads a tour of the exhibition. 

Gallery Tour 
Thursday 9 November, 7pm
Barbican Art Gallery 
Tickets: £16, exhibition ticket included 

Ros Gray, Programme Director of the MA Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London, leads a tour of the exhibition reflecting on gender, climate, and colonialism. 

RE/SISTERS edition of The More-Than-Human Book Club 
Saturday 11 November, 2.30pm 
Barbican Library 
Donations welcome 

Meet with The More-Than-Human Book Club, a drop-in Art and Ecology reading group that meets monthly in Barbican library. Taking the form of a relaxed conversation collectively considering the artists, artworks and ideas expressed in the show, with the added option of staying for a more informal discussion. Co-led by Olivia “Lilly” Edward, a Writer who specialises in nature and the environment, and Rhona Eve Clews, an Artist, Healer and Ecologist. All welcome, no prior knowledge required.  

Gallery Tour 
Thursday 16 November, 7pm 
Barbican Art Gallery 
Tickets: £16, exhibition ticket included 

Colm Guo-Lin Peare, assistant curator of RE/SISTERS, leads a tour of the exhibition. 

Deep Throat Choir and F* Choir 
Thursday 23 November, 7pm 
Barbican Art Gallery 
Free for RE/SISTERS ticket holders 

An evening of protest songs inspired by the Greenham Common Songbook, performed by the London-based collectives Deep Throat Choir and F*Choir. 

Gallery Tour 
Thursday 30 November, 7pm 
Barbican Art Gallery 
Tickets: £16, exhibition ticket included 

Lucy Bradnock leads a tour of the exhibition examining the radical feminist potential of women picturing and performing the body as ecologically entangled. Bradnock is Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Vice-Dean for Research at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she convenes the MA course ‘Ecologies in American Art, 1950 to Now’.  

Conference: Resist, Persist: Gender, Climate and Colonialism 
Thursday 7 & Friday 8 December  
Frobisher Auditorium 2 
Tickets: £20, exhibition ticket included 

A collaboration between Barbican Art Gallery and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, this 1½ -day symposium uses the themes and works included in RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology to explore the indivisible bonds between gender and environmental justice. Bringing together artists, scholars and curators, the symposium will explore how women, gender non-conforming and marginalised communities are often placed at the forefront of advocating and caring for the planet, and more broadly how womanist politics have consistently resisted the mechanical, patriarchal order that is organised around the exploitation of natural resources and the oppression of ‘othered’ bodies. Keynote speakers include Prof Astrida Neimanis.  

Please see website for more details.