Devyani Saltzman is familiar with hopping between all forms of culture.Paul Saltzman/Supplied
When Devyani Saltzman saw that London’s Barbican Centre was hunting for a new director for arts and participation, her interest was piqued. The Oxford University graduate had loved visiting the multidisciplinary arts centre when she lived in England. After years overseeing programming at institutions including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Luminato Festival, Saltzman was familiar with hopping between all forms of culture.
“It feels a little kismet-y, but I’ve always been attracted to places where disciplines are talking to each other,” says the multihyphenate daughter of acclaimed filmmakers Deepa Mehta and Paul Saltzman. “And I think artists are never working in silos, or a single discipline.”
She was named to the Barbican’s artistic-director post in late February, and will begin the job in July. Working with its team of lead specialists, Saltzman will oversee programming for the centre’s many spaces, which present theatre performances, concerts, art exhibitions and more. Her arrival comes at a major turning point for the centre: it’s coming off of several years of turmoil and leadership changes after it was revealed in 2021 that a group of staff had raised more than 100 instances of racism and discrimination.
Saltzman spoke to The Globe and Mail from Mexico, where she’s working to finish her next book, Exiting: Towards a Future of Work that Serves Us All.
What attracted you to the Barbican Centre?
When this post came up, I ended up having a conversation with Claire Spencer, their new chief executive officer. I just loved her values-based approach to institutions. My purpose would be more than just programming: Can we shift the organization’s values from the inside out to better benefit artists and people?
I was the first POC woman at Banff and the director of public programming at the AGO. These large beasts are partly funded by taxpayer dollars and therefore accountable to their publics. We’ve seen a lot of organizations over the last few years butt up against their true mandate, which is to serve people. What I liked about Claire’s philosophy is that we’re here in service to publics and in service to artists. Organizations need to be more permeable and accountable. I felt this was an opportunity to test that out.
This is an organization that’s gone undergone significant tumult in the years before your hiring, losing some top leaders after a group of staff called it “institutionally racist.” Do you believe you have responsibility in terms of the programming to make the centre more equitable while still appealing to the public?
One hundred per cent. And what I mean by public is not public in terms of what’s on the stages or the screen. I mean in terms of the space as a welcoming space, one that is authentically working in communities beyond tokenism. It’s not only the programming, but how we’re serving local East London communities, newcomers and racialized artists.
Your agency described your upcoming book as examining the “exiting of diverse leaders from organizations they were invited into” – which we’ve seen at institutions such as the AGO and National Gallery of Canada. Without spoiling the book too much, what can institutions do to protect diverse leaders?
What I’m writing about is almost like a philosophical ethos shift. It’s still very experimental. Organizations that are trying to be progressive are not hiring just one person of colour to shoulder the responsibility of the change mandate. Even if it’s a progressive space with a number of leaders of colour, we’re still working in this very capitalist model of productivity – a hamster wheel of programming at the expense of intentional, relationship-based structures that aren’t hierarchical.
We used to produce 400 events a year in public programming at the AGO. They were fantastic, but why are we working toward burnout all the time? I think what can be better for any leader of colour is organizations that are more people-centred, based in values around human relationships.
How is this going to affect your work at the Barbican Centre?
I’m going to try to model it. I think people are hungry for working in better and healthier ways. How are we slowing down the schedule to be more intentional and have better relationships with the artists we serve? We’re talking about documents being rewritten through HR, through the CEO, and through the new director of arts, to potentially practise a new model.
There’s a history of Canadian programming there – presenting work from Robert Lepage, Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre, and recently Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata. Is this something you’ve thought consciously of building upon, or do you anticipate checking any Canadian bias at the door?
When I went to meet Claire, I was actually an early supporter of Ravi Jain and Why Not, And caught the last show of the Mahabharata at the Barbican for seven hours, which was fantastic. For me, programming is as much deeply local as truly international, including parts of the world that haven’t been presented.
I’m not the lead on everything, but I’m working with the [disciplinary heads]. But I’m thinking about considering artists such as Jeremy Dutcher, and more work around global Indigeneity that hasn’t necessarily been done on a large scale.
How do would you compare Canada’s approach to cultural programming to that of the U.K.? Some parts of Canadian identity tend to skew toward politeness, or a fear of risk-taking, that you don’t always see abroad.
I’m hoping this platform might be fun to maybe lean into a little more boldness and not-so-niceness. Which is not necessarily my nature, but it seems like there’s kind of an appetite for being out there that I’m excited to pursue. That exists in Canadian cultural institutions, but we may be a culture that is more polite. So I’m excited to see what the London scene feels like.
Is it true that your parents are planning to live with you part-time in London?
Part of the way I think we have to work, especially in terms of people of colour and racialized folks, is that we have to bring in balance, outside of the productivity cycle. And that includes centring family and relationships outside of work. I didn’t do that for 15 years, to my own detriment. And yet I grew up in an intergenerational home with my grandmother, partly in New Delhi. My family agreed that they wanted to come spend three months a year with me so that we’re connected.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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Josh O’Kane