Station to Station: A 30 day Happening, Barbican

This summer, Doug Aitken’s experimental show Station to Station: A 30 day Happening takes over the Barbican’s indoor and outdoor spaces. For 30 days, over 50 performances and more than 100 artists will take part in this living exhibition that promises a month packed full of events.

What's in the programme?

This incredibly ambitious exhibition incorporates immersive yurts, interactive laser commissions, outdoor installations, indoor performances, a pop-up vinyl pressing unit, artists and designers in residence and dozens of workshops and talks.

A few highlights include: Olaf Breuning’s multi-coloured smoke performance, Jeremy Deller’s band Factory Records performing live and artist Anri Sala working with overtone singer Anna-Maria Hefele to merge two well-known pieces of music (The Internationale and La Marseillaise). The Mexican artist Pedro Reyes will lead a spiritual speed-dating night, where visitors can chat one-on-one with religious figures and celebrities, while an expanded-cinema installation shows works by Francis Alÿs, Yayoi Kusama, Angelica Mesiti, Gus Van Sant and Fischli & Weiss among others.

Doug Aitken & Station to Station

Station to Station is the continuation of Doug Aitken’s nomadic exhibition which crossed the Northern part of the US from the Atlantic to the Pacific – on a vintage train over 24 days – staging events in major cities and acting as a platform for cross-disciplinary collaboration between artists, musicians, writers and dancers. June 19^th will see the UK premiere of the Station to Station feature film in the Barbican art gallery, a documentary about the project’s journey, with previously unseen footage projected onto six floor-to-ceiling screens and resident DJ-VJ Austin Meredith taking care of visuals and sound.

Just announced

Fresh to the Station to Station stage are Black Flag front man Henry Rolins (who joins the tributes to the New York synth duo Suicide); performance poet Jemima Foxtrot (22nd July, 4.30pm); and Michèle Lamy and her multi-sensory magic alongside chef Dieuveil Malonga's Afro fusion dishes and James Lavelle's soundtrack from the installation made live in The Vinyl Factory Recording Studio. 

This is part exhibition, part testing ground so expect the unexpected. However, with free access to all the daytime events and a line-up that will make every theatre, gallery, museum and cinema in London jealous, this is an exhibition that can’t be missed.