Barbican Art Gallery - London

This free installation invites visitors to orient themselves in the buildings and their complex, fascinating histories in an exciting new display at the heart of the Barbican’s Foyers.

Journey through landscapes reshaped by extreme force in a new exhibition that brings together film and sculpture by North American artist Lucy Raven. Focusing on the biggest dam removal and river restoration project in US history, Murderers Bar is the final instalment in Raven’s moving image series, The Drumfire . Using aerial and underwater imaging, the camera captures a landscape in flux, following the immense release of water as it carves its own path for the first time in over 100 years. The exhibition also features a new kinetic light sculpture, Hardpan , commissioned in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Echoing Raven’s film work, the sculpture channels the monumental energy of industrial force – though this time, it’s the gallery that’s transformed, and we, the viewers, who feel its impact.

Works by contemporary artist Mona Hatoum and 20th century sculptor Alberto Giacometti are seen together for the first time in this ground-breaking exhibition, part of Encounters: Giacometti (https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/series/encounters-giacometti).

From ruined romantic evening gowns to faux-stained jeans, mud-splashed dresses and upcycled outfits, the fashion world has never been dirtier. But where did this idea of getting dirty come from? Where is it going? And, what does it say about fashion's relationship to the earth and to our bodies? Dirty Looks explores how dirt and decay have been used to defy beauty standards, and why it's going through a resurgence in young designers' work. As a counterpoint to glossy digital perfection, these artistic practices point us to a new way of thinking about a sustainable fashion future. Featuring icons like Hussein Chalayan , Alexander McQueen , Vivienne Westwood , Miguel Adrover and Maison Margiela , alongside emerging designers such as Elena Velez , Yuima Nakazato and IAMISIGO , this exhibition explores fashion's past, present and possible future. Please note that this exhibition includes some nudity, explicit language, references to drug use and some flashing images. For guidance on where these references are in the gallery, please speak to a member of staff.

An exhibition celebrating Martyn Goddard ’s most famous images of Blondie taken during their breakthrough year

Join us for a lecture by architect Adrien Verschuere, in which he discusses recent projects by his office, the Brussels-based Baukunst. Adrien Verschuere founded the architectural practice Baukunst in Brussels in 2008, after working at both Herzog De Meuron and OMA. The first two projects the office built were nominated for the EU Mies Award. Verschuere will present projects including the recently completed FRAME , a television studio building undertaken in collaboration with the French office Bruther.

Al-Jawad Pike's work explores the intersection of architecture, performance, and digital technologies. This exhibition showcases a series of immersive installations that blur the boundaries between these disciplines.

Icons from fashion, art and music reveal the fashion subculture moments that shaped them, tracing a legacy of identity, resistance and freedom, from club to couture. Step inside an expanded archive, illuminating the influence of club and kink subculture on popular culture. From leather to latex, each piece reveals how style becomes a language of identity, resistance and reclamation. Revisiting moments laced through the individual and collective memory from Polaroids to key pieces, this collection of garments and objects charts the shifting codes and desires of queer and underground culture as it enters the mainstream. We look to the margins to inform the centre and ask: what is urgent about freedom and bodily autonomy today? An expanded archive, featuring adult-only content will be accessible across the Dirty Weekend Level G Takeover (https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/dirty-weekend-level-g-takeover-18) on 29 & 30 Nov.