Press release archive: 2026
2026 Press releases
The Hayward Gallery, in partnership with RC Foundation, Taiwan (R.O.C.), will present Musquiqui Chihying: A Life of Navigation. This will mark the artist’s first solo exhibition in a public institution in the UK and the seventh exhibition in the RC Foundation Project Space Exhibition Series, which showcases the next generation of emerging international artists.
As part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme, Musquiqui Chihying: A Life of Navigation takes place in the HENI Project Space in the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery – a space that offers the opportunity for audiences to discover exhibitions from new artistic voices for free.
The Southbank Centre today announces further programming for the inaugural edition of Creative Intelligence, a brand new weekend-long takeover exploring the future of art, technology and creativity. The weekend is a highlight of the Southbank Centre’s 75th year, and celebrates the same spirit of innovation and curiosity which launched the 1951 Festival of Britain, the first chapter in the Southbank Centre’s story.
Creative Intelligence will take over the Southbank Centre’s iconic 11-acre site from Friday 11 – Sunday 13 September, transforming it into a playground of human imagination: an open and democratic space for learning, play and technological experimentation. The three day programme is packed with art, performance, music, and debate, alongside plenty of opportunities to get hands-on with creative tech. Centred on innovation and discovery for everyone, Creative Intelligence brings together artists, writers, experts and the public to explore creativity in an age where our understanding of both human and artificial intelligence is rapidly shifting.
The Hayward Gallery, in partnership with the RC Foundation, Taiwan (R.O.C.), will present Kulpreet Singh: Indelible Black Marks. Co-presented with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Indelible Black Marks will mark Indian artist Kulpreet Singh’s first solo exhibition in the UK and the second exhibition as part of the RC Foundation Project Space Exhibition Series for 2026, which showcases the next generation of emerging international artists.
Kulpreet Singh: Indelible Black Marks will take place in the HENI Project Space in the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery – a space that offers the opportunity for audiences to discover exhibitions from new artistic voices for free.
As a centrepiece of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme, the Hayward Gallery presents a landmark exhibition from Anish Kapoor (16 June – 18 October 2026), marking his highly-anticipated return to the space after it was the first public gallery in the UK to host a major survey of his work in 1998. Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the show spans new and seminal works, offering a series of spectacular encounters with Kapoor’s sculptures and paintings across the entire gallery and its terraces.
Anish Kapoor is internationally renowned for making art that provokes the senses and the mind. Over the last four decades, he has relentlessly experimented with a wide range of materials to create evocative sculptures and paintings that spark a deep sense of mystery. From black holes to boundless mirrors, Kapoor’s work interrogates what he calls ‘the space of the object’, inviting us to look twice and question how we experience our environment.
At the heart of the exhibition are three monumental works that defy the boundaries of conventional sculpture, each filling an entire section of the Hayward. Visitors can first explore a gallery completely transformed by a colossal and imposing new work: an inflated PVC membrane that fills the six-metre-high space, challenging our sense of scale and self.
This September, Creative Intelligence takes over the Southbank Centre for a weekend-long festival exploring the future of technology and creativity.
Over three days (11-13 September), the Southbank Centre will become a playground for creative technologies, exploring how human agency and imagination interact and intertwine with technology and innovation. The festival programme encompasses art, performance, live gigs, demos, and debate, with space for play and experimentation alongside learning and discussion. The offer ranges from hands-on activities for curious newcomers, to in-depth, specialist talks tailored for creatives and industry experts. Inspired by the spirit of innovation which powered the Festival of Britain in 1951, Creative Intelligence explores how art and technologies, including AI, are combining to shape the future. This is the first edition of an ambitious annual festival that will host debate, play, art, and technology. Creative Intelligence is commissioned and produced by the Southbank Centre and is curated with PACT (Planetary Art Culture Technology).
Hayward Gallery Touring is delighted to announce Small Wonders: Reimagining British Art, a new touring exhibition launching as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations. Bringing together new and existing work by 50 acclaimed artists, the show offers an eclectic snapshot of British art across the past 45 years.
The exhibition features alumni from every edition of the landmark British Art Show – the UK’s most significant recurring survey of contemporary art – spanning the inaugural 1979 iteration to the most recent in 2021. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise (a ‘portable museum’ comprising miniature versions of his work), each artist was invited to contribute a small-scale work reflecting on their past involvement in British Art Show. Each approached the invitation in a distinctly personal way.
The Southbank Centre in collaboration with Goalhanger today unveils the final programming for Goalhanger: The Rest Is Fest (Fri 4 – Sun 6 Sep 2026), a highlight of the centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations, with a special event featuring Stanley Tucci & Gary Lineker in the Royal Festival Hall (6 Sep). The final events in the line-up include:
- Stanley Tucci: Hollywood, Food & Me (6 Sep, RFH) sees actor Stanley Tucci join Goalhanger co-founder Gary Lineker for a special live conversation spanning film, food, family and storytelling.
- The Real Housewives of Regency England (6 Sep, QEH) brings Marina Hyde and Tom Holland together to lift the lid on power, scandal and society in one of British history’s most fascinating eras.
- Ancient Myths (6 Sep, QEH) sees friends of The Rest Is History Mary Beard join Josephine Quinn to explore ancient power, legend and legacy.
- The 3 Ayatollahs: An Unbreakable Dynasty? (6 Sep, Purcell Room) unites William Dalrymple, Anita Anand and Ali M. Ansari to examine power, religion and politics in modern Iran.
- Football Clichés (5 Sep, Purcell Room) brings its cult take on the language, quirks and absurdities of the beautiful game to the festival stage, with the full crew – Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker – joining.
The Southbank Centre’s A Poet In Every Port is set to launch on Friday 29 May at Great Yarmouth’s Out There Arts Festival with ambassador Roger McGough making a special guest appearance. The mobile National Poetry Library – unveiled this week – will travel to 11 coastal locations across the UK, from North Uist (16-17 Jun) and Dundee (20-21 Jun) in Scotland, to Penzance in Cornwall (6-7 Jul); Caernarfon in Wales (9-10 Jul) and Bangor in Northern Ireland (25-26 Sep). Inspired by the travelling exhibitions of the 1951 Festival of Britain, it forms a key part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary national programme.
A Poet In Every Port celebrates the UK’s diverse dialects and languages and tells the stories of the nation’s coastal communities in poetry and spoken word throughout its journey. The mobile National Poetry Library features unique poetry collections, a recording studio, and space for workshops. Visitors of all ages are free to browse the collection, take part in free workshops and watch performances by local poets.
The Southbank Centre today announces a major new investment in the future and history steel pan music in Britain, unveiling Steel Scenes – a landmark programme combining new music and research commissions and large-scale performance, 75 years since steel pan was first heard live in the UK at the South Bank.
Bringing together more than 500 musicians and over 25 steel bands, Steel Scenes transforms the entire Southbank Centre site into a weekend-long celebration, marking 75 years since the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) performed live on the South Bank during the Festival of Britain in 1951 – widely regarded as the first steel band performance in the UK and a foundational moment in post-war British musical culture.
Across 25–26 July 2026, the Southbank Centre’s foyers, terraces, riverside walkways and performance spaces will be transformed by mass performances, new commissions, workshops, talks and pop-up moments, with steel pan placed at the heart of the arts centre’s summer of 75th anniversary celebrations. From the South Bank’s Jubilee Gardens to the Royal Festival Hall, audiences will encounter steel pan music across every corner of the 11-acre site in one of the largest gatherings of performers for a steel pan dedicated event ever staged in the UK.
The Southbank Centre today announces a major new strand of Harry Styles’ Meltdown festival (11 – 21 June 2026) dedicated to championing unsigned and emerging artists through a curated day of free outdoor live music on its Riverside Terrace.
Taking place on 17 June, the Southbank Centre’s outdoor festival stage will host a night-long takeover by Amex Unsigned, an initiative supporting breakthrough opportunities for emerging musicians from the festival’s Official Supporting Partner, American Express. The programme brings together a line-up of rising artists selected from the Amex Unsigned roster, spotlighting new voices and future talent across a setlist of free performances, adding to Styles’ thoughtful Meltdown curation.
Now in its fourth year, Amex Unsigned creates space for new music to thrive by using the American Express platform to support breakthrough opportunities for emerging musicians, ranging from mentorship and studio time through to performances at festivals such as All Points East, American Express presents BST Hyde Park and now Harry Styles’ Meltdown.
Today, the Hayward Gallery announces a major solo exhibition by acclaimed American artist and activist Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong. Rounding off the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year, the exhibition will run from 24 November 2026 – 7 March 2027 and marks Goldin’s first institutional exhibition in the UK since 2002.
Over the past five decades, Nan Goldin has documented personal relationships, addiction and queer communities, forming an autobiography she calls “a record of my life that no one can revise”. Her unflinching images have transformed photography by closing the distance between the observer and the observed, capturing the rawness of the artist’s own life and that of her people. Comprising deeply intimate photographs and slideshows, her stories embrace the complexity of life, standing as universal tales of love and loss.
This autumn, the Southbank Centre unveils the UK premiere of Playing With Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja Wang, a major new mixed-reality experience and bold expansion of the piano recital, written and directed by Pierre-Alain Giraud. Combining live recital, visual art, mixed reality and virtual reality technologies with spatialised sound, the production places classical music in striking dialogue with virtual worlds, allowing an unprecedented perspective on the performance of one of the world’s greatest living pianists.
Running at the Royal Festival Hall from 9 September 2026 to 3 January 2027 as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year, Playing with Fire invites audiences to step inside a series of visual environments and precisely crafted sound worlds, shaped around the artistry of internationally acclaimed and Grammy Award-winning pianist Yuja Wang.
The Southbank Centre today announces that Harry Styles’ headline performance on 16 June 2026, part of his curation of this year’s Meltdown festival, will be a major fundraiser for the multi-arts centre’s charitable work, with tickets allocated via a prize draw opening today.
The one-night-only headline performance in the iconic Royal Festival Hall offers a rare and intimate experience of a Harry Styles gig, through a landmark collaboration with the Jules Buckley Orchestra. This orchestral gig will see Styles and Grammy award-winning conductor, composer and previous collaborator Buckley join forces to bring an evening of new arrangements of Harry Styles’ music to life.
The Southbank Centre presents Skate 50 (30 April – 21 June 2026), a multimedia exhibition marking fifty years of the Undercroft Skate Space. Developed alongside active members of the Southbank skate community, Skate 50 will include new commissions utilising photography, moving image and sound to delve into the stories and communities that have shaped one of the most recognisable spaces in skate culture.
The Undercroft Skate Space is widely considered as the birthplace of British skateboarding. A space left open to the public when the Queen Elizabeth Hall was built in the 1960s, its concrete ledges, ramps, and pillars were then adopted by skateboarders in the mid 1970s. Fifty years on, it is now one of the oldest continuously used skateboarding locations in the UK, home to a community that spans five generations and a cornerstone of creative expression.
LONDON, Friday 1 May 2026 – Celebrating its 75th anniversary at the centre of the UK’s cultural landscape, the Southbank Centre today unveils the Pin Drop, a temporary installation that towers over Europe’s largest arts centre, marking the start of You Are Here – the centrepiece of the 75th anniversary programme.
Designed by Gareth Pugh and Carson McColl, the Pin Drop stands 20 metres tall and is suspended 20 metres from the ground. Echoing the optimism of the Festival of Britain and the area’s cultural rebirth in 1951, the Pin Drop draws inspiration from Skylon, a slender, seemingly floating vertical landmark that became an emblem of post-war renewal on the South Bank.
The Southbank Centre today announces the full line-up for South Asian Sounds, which runs from Wednesday 1 to Sunday 5 July 2026 as part of the multi-arts centre’s 75th anniversary year.
Taking place across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, the series platforms the artists at the forefront of South Asian music and performance across the UK, from clubs to concert halls to international stages. Household names and electric new talent come together to present a rich and varied programme of South Asian culture, representing an array of genres that honour heritage while defining the future of the scene.
Today, the Hayward Gallery, in partnership with the RC Foundation, Taiwan (R.O.C.), unveils its 2026 RC Foundation Project Space Exhibition Series, presented during the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. Continuing its history of introducing the latest trends in contemporary art from around the world to UK audiences, this year’s programme presents innovative works by Samuel Laurence Cunnane (Ireland), Kulpreet Singh (India), Musquiqui Chihying (Taiwan) and Andrius Arutiunian (Armenia/Lithuania).
In 2025, the HENI Project Space welcomed over 160,000 unticketed visitors, upholding the Southbank Centre’s commitment to creating free, accessible cultural experiences for all to enjoy. By platforming emerging and newly-established international voices, the space remains a vital launchpad for talent to forge new connections and reach wider audiences. Since opening in 2007, the Project Space has exhibited over 150 artists from across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, including Pipilotti Rist, Frances Stark, Hicham Berrada, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Heecheon Kim, Amol K Patil and Naomi Rincón Gallardo.
The Southbank Centre’s Classical Music Autumn/Winter 2026/27 programme will open and reach its finale with landmark moments celebrating two of the most influential composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, bringing together Resident Orchestras, Resident Artists and new collaborators to experience the breadth of their genre-defying output. A two-day exploration of the music of Steve Reich (26–27 Sep) marks his 90th birthday with performances ranging from intimate chamber works to a large-scale immersive sonic installation, while the season culminates in a major celebration of Philip Glass (30–31 Jan), which includes the UK premiere of his 15th Symphony, Lincoln.
Today, Hayward Gallery Touring announces the title, concept and selection of participating artists in British Art Show 10: A Chorus of Strangers. Launching in Coventry in October 2026 before touring to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle Gateshead, Ekow Eshun’s curatorial vision will bring together over 30 artists to provide a vital overview of the most exciting art produced in the UK during the past five years, including:
Okiki Akinfe; Alex Margo Arden; Liz Johnson Artur; Alvaro Barrington; Shiraz Bayjoo; Lubna Chowdhary; Shawanda Corbett; Jesse Darling; Ufuoma Essi; Joy Gerrard; Louise Giovanelli; Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings; Kudzanai-Violet Hwami; Nnena Kalu; Jasleen Kaur; Christina Kimeze; Julian knxx; Matthew Krishanu; Alastair Mackinven; Melanie Manchot; Lindsey Mendick; Emma McNally; Dala Nasser; Jack O’Brien; Nengi Omuku; Precious Okoyomon; Hannah Perry; Mohammed Sami; Rae-Yen Song; Emma Talbot; Nicole Wermers; Osman Yousefzada.
As the UK’s largest recurring contemporary art exhibition, British Art Show 10 is produced by Hayward Gallery Touring and forms a key part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary national programme.
This summer, indie icon Rough Trade takes over the Southbank Centre for a weekend-long celebration of 50 years in the business as one of Britain’s most influential independent music institutions.
As the Southbank Centre marks the 75th anniversary of the Festival of Britain and the building of the Royal Festival Hall, this weekend takeover (17 – 19 July) will celebrate two giants of British culture and the indelible mark they have made on the UK’s artistic ecosystem. Bringing together up and coming current artists and household names who have helped define the contemporary music scene, Rough Trade 50 will offer an unmissable insight into an institution that has played a vital part in shaping the indie music landscape since its inception. Alongside a vibrant and eclectic offering of live music, the weekend will also feature a host of cross-arts performances, a record fair, and an unmissable evening with Rough Trade Books.
The 2026/2027 Performance & Dance Autumn/Winter season rounds out the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year and sets the tone for a new year of vibrant, cross-arts performances from across the world. Carrying forward the celebratory energy of the 75th programme, the Southbank Centre’s Autumn/Winter Performance & Dance programme, celebrates icons of the theatre and dance and spotlights the trailblazers and innovators who contribute to the Southbank Centre’s vision to be the arts centre of the future.
The season platforms leading performers, theatre-makers, and choreographers with an electric line up which presents radical new works alongside festive family favourites.
The Southbank Centre has today been awarded £10m from Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to undertake critical infrastructure repairs to the Grade I listed Royal Festival Hall.
Awarded through the Creative Foundations Fund, the grant will address urgent structural challenges, ensuring this world-class venue and the UK’s home for classical music remains fully operational, as well as helping to reduce its carbon footprint.
The critical work the grant will support includes replacing the building’s original single-glazed windows and its aging flat roof to stop water damage from flooding and improve energy efficiency. The funding will also modernise the auditorium’s rigging systems.
The Southbank Centre today announces the first names in the line-up for Harry Styles’ Meltdown, taking place 11–21 June 2026 as part of its 75th anniversary year.
Curated by Harry Styles, the festival spans the Southbank Centre’s multi-venue site, bringing together a wide-ranging line-up of artists across electronic, jazz, pop and experimental music.
As part of his curation, Harry Styles will also perform a headline show at the Royal Festival Hall on 16 June 2026, with full details to be announced soon.
The Southbank Centre today announces further details of You Are Here (3 May 2026), the centrepiece of its 75th anniversary celebrations.
Created by leading voices across film, theatre, literature and fashion – Gareth Pugh, Carson McColl, Danny Boyle and Paulette Randall, with Sabrina Mahfouz and Natasha Chivers, the landmark event will transform the Southbank Centre in a one-day, sitewide experience: an immersive fusion of theatrical performance, live music, dance, fashion and visual art that reveals the throughlines between cultural movements that have shifted Britain’s kaleidoscopic identity.
The Southbank Centre today announces a new youth-powered weekender Letters To The Future (18–20 September) spotlighting the cultural leaders of the next generation.
Internationally renowned creators, writers, activists, thinkers and multi-hyphenate stars Amelia Dimoldenberg, Olly Alexander, Mya-Rose Craig and Rebecca F. Kuang curate panel discussions tackling the biggest issues of the moment, whilst lecturer, broadcaster and bestselling author Ash Sarkar delivers the inaugural Southbank Centre Annual Lecture. Complementing these events is a rich interdisciplinary programme including talks, performances, free gigs, DJs sets, and spoken word.
The Southbank Centre today announces Grammy and Brit award-winning global superstar and founder of the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa, as curator of its 2026 London Literature Festival (Wednesday 21 October – Sunday 1 November). Dua will curate a series of events in the opening weekend (Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 October) as well as events across the whole festival with her Service95 Book Club.
The Southbank Centre today publishes its 2025 Impact Report, highlighting a year of bold experimentation that saw the classical music experience reimagined, barriers between art forms dissolved and a commitment to opening up its 11-acre site to more people.
Headline evidence from the report:
- 55% of events at the Southbank Centre were free in 2025
- 11,672,984 visitors to its 11-acre site
- 8,695 artists performed on its stages
- The Southbank Centre delivered work in 24 towns and cities in all four nations across the UK. This includes touring exhibitions, which were seen by 300,465 people outside of London
- The Southbank Centre engaged 328 schools and 6,860 pupils
The report, the first of its kind for the UK’s largest arts centre, outlines the Southbank Centre’s impact across 2025. It considers what it means to be the arts centre of the future and demonstrates how it is growing to meet the needs of a modern audience – from creating live, site-wide experiences to supporting young people’s mental health. The report reveals how over 11.6 million people visited its 11-acre site and stayed for durations ranging from 30 minutes and six hours.
This summer, the Southbank Centre celebrates the resilience, creativity and contributions of refugees and people seeking sanctuary as Refugee Week returns with a programme of cultural events and performances centred on the theme of ‘Courage.’ The Southbank Centre’s Refugee Week programme, which runs 26 – 28 June 2026, brings together artists with lived experience of displacement, leading cultural voices, allies and creatives with migrant heritage to reflect on what courage looks like today. It offers a powerful affirmation of community and solidarity in defiance of division and hostility with a dynamic and multi-disciplinary programme of DJ sets, film screenings, gigs, panel discussions and literary events in response to this year’s theme.
As it celebrates its 75th year, the Southbank Centre is seeking memories of the Festival of Britain from people who visited in 1951, either at the custom-built site on the South Bank – home to the Royal Festival Hall – or at one of the many regional events that took place across the nation. There is a portal for submissions on the website, and the collected stories will be added to the Southbank Centre archive, woven into the living history of the Grade-II listed brutalist site and preserved for future generations.
The Southbank Centre in collaboration with Goalhanger today unveils more programming for Goalhanger: The Rest Is Fest (Fri 4 – Sun 6 Sep 2026), a highlight of the centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations. The newly announced events include:
- New events will feature collaborations from existing Goalhanger podcasts: Anthony Scaramucci (The Rest Is Politics: US) and David McCloskey (The Rest Is Classified) join forces for Team America: World Police? (5 Sep, QEH)
- Richard Osman and Marina Hyde host an all-out battle between the sharpest minds in British podcasting in The Rest Is Quiz for one night only (6 Sep, QEH)
- The Rest Is Science (QEH) and The Book Club (Purcell Room) take to the stage for their first ever live editions (5 Sep)
- The Royal Festival Hall plays host to The Rest Is Politics: The Special Relationship (5 Sep)
- By popular demand, Sherlock & Co. adds a second show (6 Sep, Purcell Room)
- The Rest Is Classified (4 Sep, QEH) returns to the Southbank Centre following a sold-out performance earlier in January 2026.
The Southbank Centre’s longest-running festival Poetry International Festival returns (Friday 10 – Sunday 12 July) and includes a celebration of the life and work of the trailblazing poet Benjamin Zephaniah, as well as a celebration of Allen Ginsberg at 100. The festival programme brings together multi-art events, workshops and on-site activity as a key part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations as the centre marks its creation during the 1951 Festival of Britain.
The Hayward Gallery presents Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life and Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart, concurrent exhibitions from two innovative and globally celebrated artists who use ordinary materials to create extraordinary works on a monumental scale. Featuring new commissions and key existing pieces, these exhibitions explore the different ways both artists interweave textiles and found objects into deeply personal reflections on memory, identity and the human condition. Both presentations build on the Southbank Centre’s commitment to introducing international artists to new audiences and form part of its nationwide 75th anniversary celebrations, which run throughout 2026 and span events across London and the UK.
The Southbank Centre today announces Harry Styles as curator of its 2026 Meltdown festival.
Harry joins a long line of prestigious past curators including David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Nile Rodgers and many more. This year marks a landmark edition of the world’s longest-running artist-curated music festival, presented as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. The Southbank Centre, a place that brings different art forms together and is open to all, will see Styles take its artistic reins for 11 days and curate its annual multi-arts festival, spanning the 11-acre site (11 – 21 June 2026).
The Southbank Centre (@southbank.centre) and TikTok today announce the first-ever Crescendo cohort: ten UK-based classical music content creators selected for the new accelerator programme, in the Centre’s 75th anniversary year, supporting emerging digital talent and bringing classical music to new, digital-first audiences.
Launched through an open call in September 2025, Crescendo supports creators who are reshaping how classical music is shared, discovered and understood online – reaching new audiences through storytelling, education and experimentation.
With nearly one million posts under #ClassicalMusic on TikTok and the hashtag growing by more than 60% in 2025, Crescendo responds to a growing appetite for accessible classical music content beyond the concert hall environment.
The Southbank Centre today announces the full line-up for the return of Multitudes, its multi-arts festival powered by orchestral music, running from 16 – 30 April 2026 as part of the centre’s 75th anniversary year.
A centrepiece of the festival’s programme is Un-natural Harmony: Sounds of Lee Alexander McQueen (29 – 30 April), a major new collaboration between the London Contemporary Orchestra, Robert Ames, and John Gosling, McQueen’s longtime music director and collaborator. The multi-arts concert is a reimagining of the music which inspired Lee Alexander McQueen’s most iconic fashion runways in a live orchestral setting.
The Southbank Centre today announces poet Roger McGough as the celebrity ambassador for A Poet In Every Port, alongside the full touring route for the project bringing the National Poetry Library to 11 coastal towns across the UK. Inspired by the travelling exhibitions of the 1951 Festival of Britain, it forms a key part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary national programme.
Led by a touring version of the Southbank Centre’s National Poetry Library in collaboration with 11 partners, A Poet In Every Port brings a selection of the world’s largest public collection of modern poetry in a new mobile library, alongside free public events, workshops and poetry readings. The mobile National Poetry Library travels to each nation of the UK, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, to Penzance in Cornwall; Bangor in Northern Ireland to Caernarfon in Wales.
The Southbank Centre today announces that Sally Tallant has been appointed Director of the Hayward Gallery and Visual Arts.
Sally will take up the role from July 2026 and will lead a programme of work that includes directing and curating exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery, the Southbank Centre’s contemporary art space. Sally will also organise visual arts installations across the whole Southbank Centre site and will oversee a national programme of work through Hayward Gallery Touring which reaches hundreds of thousands of people across the UK every year.
The Hayward Gallery, in partnership with the RC Foundation, Taiwan (R.O.C.), will present Samuel Laurence Cunnane: Blue Road. This will mark the Irish artist’s London debut and the fifth exhibition in the RC Foundation Project Space Exhibition Series, which showcases the next generation of emerging international artists.
The exhibition will take place in the HENI Project Space in the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery – a space that offers the opportunity for audiences to discover exhibitions from new artistic voices for free.