Anna Best

As part of the Barbican's 25th Birthday celebrations, Barbican Art Gallery has commissioned London based artist Anna Best to work within the unique context of the Barbican Centre.

Best's work expands the traditional role of artist, audience, host and performer. Her work often takes place in urban public spaces, from service stations to parks, traffic crossings to the river Thames, prompting and producing a set of unexpected social experiences that actively involve the public.

For her commission at the Barbican, Best will explore the tension between the Barbican Centre's private and semi-public spaces by drawing visitors' attention to the numerous levels of separation and fracture inherent to its architectural language, the rules that carefully regulate behaviour on the Highwalks and the balconies that become incidental surveillance points in the absence of CCTV.

Anna Best
In Residence
Barbican Art Gallery