Image Credit: Installation View of Euphoria, 2026 at Bold Tendencies. Photographed by Damian Griffiths.

For over two decades, Hannah Barry has been reshaping the cultural landscape of London. Growing up in Dartford, immersed in libraries, youth clubs, school orchestras and formative trips into the capital’s creative undercurrents, she developed an early belief in the power of culture to bring people together. After studying History of Art at Cambridge, she found her way to Peckham, where a sense of possibility, openness and experimentation led her to establish both Hannah Barry Gallery and, in 2007, the now-iconic Bold Tendencies.

Today, Bold Tendencies celebrates its 20th anniversary with Euphoria – a season exploring transcendence, joy, belonging and the extraordinary possibilities of being together. Taking over the rooftop spaces of what was Peckham’s multi-storey car park, the programme spans visual art, music, dance, literature and learning. Highlights include performances by the Philharmonia Orchestra, world premieres from choreographer Oona Doherty and performer Lily McMenamy, alongside ambitious new commissions from leading contemporary artists.

What makes Hannah’s work resonate so strongly today is her enduring commitment to access, imagination and collective experience. Whether supporting artists over the long term through her gallery, or creating a place where audiences feel welcome “up there, in the air”, her projects remind us that culture can be both ambitious and the fuel of the beauty and nuance our inner being. As you’ll discover in this interview, she remains driven by possibility, progress and what she describes as our “right to joy”.

Away from Peckham, Hannah finds inspiration in the Chelsea Physic Garden, moments of deep looking at the National Gallery, and the timeless pleasures of Sally Clarke’s Restaurant.

So take Hannah’s advice: venture somewhere unexpected, look closely, stay curious – and explore the Euphoria programme while summer lingers in the air.

You grew up just outside London, going to school in Dartford, before moving through Cambridge and eventually building Bold Tendencies in Peckham – three very different worlds. Looking back, do you see a thread between them in how you think about space, audience, and who culture is for?

Dartford had a youth club I went to in summer, a public library I went to once a week to borrow books, and at local state school I played in an orchestra and sang in the choir (not well) and had brilliant teachers, who introduced me to a real range of material – of the many some I recall – Carol Ann Duffy, Sylvia Plath, James Baldwin, Guilaumme Apollinaire, Handel, Beckett.

As a sixth form teenager I also ventured into London, encountering Halloween Society (who introduced me to the work of Andrea Arnold amongst others – now London Short Film Festival), Lux Cinema, a pioneering space for artists’ film and digital arts, Off Centre at 333 Club on Old Street (and Mother Bar upstairs), the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, live music at the Old Blue Last, and exhibitions – I saw art college graduate shows, these were the first shows of contemporary art I saw.

As a student in Cambridge I had my first experience of architecture with purpose – and it was totally immersive: the college set up, all infrastructure designed to work together to service learning, and living… canteen/hall, library, chapel, accommodation… all plugged into each other and repeated across the university, each college with its own individual design identity. I’d not seen anything like it.

At college I got heavily interested in contemporary art and regularly returned to London – I remember clearly seeing Apocalypse at the RA, Artangel projects (including Die Familie Schneider at Whitechapel), Michael Clark Company and more. When I first came to Peckham it was at the encouragement of artists I’d met at Chelsea College… They were the first living artists of my own generation I’d met, and in Peckham I felt immediately welcome and at home.

Most importantly I found it to be a place of possibility, in a way that hadn’t immediately struck me in Dartford or Cambridge but perhaps that was also more a state of mind… I was filled with readiness, enthusiasm and energy… though not knowing for precisely what! All in all the sequence of places gave me a rich experience of space, audience and culture at large.

Image Credit: Photo of ‘The Covered Floors’ at Bold Tendencies in 2020. Photographed by Damian Griffiths.

Through the Hannah Barry Gallery you’ve built a reputation for backing artists over the long term, often before the market catches up. In a climate that rewards speed and visibility, what does it take – practically and emotionally – to stay committed to a slower, more intuitive way of building an artistic career?

The privilege of being close to an artist’s work over a long period of time – through periods of evolution, gestation, sometimes stasis, development, acceleration, even quietude – is to gain deep knowledge and comprehensive insight. As a result you develop your own language of articulation and glossary of terms for the practice, and this in application allows you to share and promote the work to wider audiences and the public.

Bold Tendencies began as something temporary, almost improvised – but nearly 20 years on, it feels like part of London’s cultural infrastructure. When did you realise it had crossed that line, and did that shift change how you think about its role?

Bold Tendencies is a world of its own. Social force and memory palace, place of magical transformation – of itself and sometimes others. I do not think about crossing lines between being one kind of thing and another, or having one form and then taking another. I think more about a state of constant being and becoming; a position of infinite evolution, improvement and progress. I find this a propulsive energetic position.

Image Credit: Photo of Kristin Scott Thomas reading Franz Kafka’s Deep Cuts at Bold Tendencies in 2024. Photographed by Dan John Lloyd.

The 20th anniversary season, Euphoria, leans into this idea of transcendence – “a mode of being and being-together that is free, uncompromising and insistently alive.” In 2026, what does euphoria mean to you?

I have reflected that 20 years is not about time, it is about Euphoria.

It is impossible to understand Euphoria as a high, without the lows. And so in the same vein you can’t have Success without failure, Joy without sorrow, Happiness without pain, Sublime without ordinary, Warm without cold, Summer without winter, Sun without rain. Euphoria is about extremes and contrasts, and adjacencies; it is perfect for Bold Tendencies. If we didn’t close, we couldn’t be open again. That’s euphoric in itself!

Film credit: Trailer for ‘Garland’ composed by Oliver Leith – a processional work for solo soprano, vocal consort, mixed choir, and large ensemble. Performed as part of Euphoria on 12 and 13 June at 8pm. boldtendencies.com

This year’s programme spans sculpture, orchestral works, dance, rave culture, literature, and community-led learning. You’ve been working ‘across disciplines’ long before it became an institutional buzzword – what still feels genuinely experimental to you now?

More than experimental I am interested in the extreme experience. Creativity can take us beyond our limits, and Bold Tendencies is a beyond the limits place. Challenging expectations, the unique nature and feeling of the space is illuminated by the way it is activated with a programme of creativity, culture and community: with conviction, without compromise, outside the comfort zone. It is special and it is spectacular.

Bold Tendencies occupies the rooftop and top floors of the former car park building originally built in 1982 with exposed concrete frame and brick cladding, very much the brutal style of its time. Some 65 ft. above ground, each level is 390 ft long and 90 ft wide with extraordinary 360° panoramic views out over the city. The rooftop is exposed; the spaces below are covered but a series of 8 “windows” to the north and south, each 22 ft wide, leave the space feeling “open-air”. Deliberately preserving the original raw fabric of the building, the peculiar conditions of this unlikely “concrete concert hall” defy traditional categorization, allowing for the dismantling of established boundaries between audience and performer, stage and seat over 40,000 sq ft of space.

Image Credit: The Euphoria closing concert. Philharmonia Orchestra performing Mozart’s ‘Great Mass in C minor’ on Sat 12 Sep, 7:30pm. boldtendencies.com Photographed by Dan John Lloyd.

There’s a beautiful line about Bold Tendencies offering “the joy of being welcome. Up there. In the air.” That sense of openness is rare – and hard won. How do you actively design for belonging, rather than just hope it happens?

The line in the air comes from Jenny Holzer’s Bold Sign made for the project as a permanent work in 2023, a two part ‘conversation piece’ more than five hours long which uses the visual language of her Times Square works of the 1980s and shows selections from iconic series Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, Living, Survival and Arno.

The complete openness of the space offers artists and audiences the sensation of being high up, in the air, aware of the changing times of day, light and weather. Attached to this is an adjacent feeling of freedom, liberation, possibility… Belonging is a different feeling – but it begins with feeling welcome; if you can feel welcome then eventually you can feel you could belong… as I did when I first came to Peckham.

Bold Tendencies has always aspired to be for everyone, and I think as a place and a programme it works very hard to answer this aspiration. Up there refers to literally being high up, but also idiomatically as the aspiration of the programme and place, to be “up there”… we want for it to be an exceptional experience.

Image Credit: Photo of performer Lily McMenamy for the World Premiere of ‘Girl Pain’. Photographed by Aidan Aamiri @aidanzamiri. Performing live as part of Euphoria on Thu 3 Sep, 7:30pm. boldtendencies.com

You’ve described success as “a consistent cycle of progress.” Two decades in, what does progress look like to you now – and where are you finding genuine reasons for optimism in London’s cultural landscape?

In May 2026, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan spoke of London as a “city of hope” while reflecting on his 10 years as Mayor. Hope is not enough, I would go further… London is a place of making ideas happen. Living Evidence, Working Proof. As Bold Tendencies is today. Where Hope + ideas + hard work can come to equal progress, innovation, possibility. But at the very least a real time exercise in our right to joy and appreciation of the arts.

Image Credit: Photo of choreographer Oona Doherty whose world premiere of ‘Leather Jacket’ will be part of Euphoria on Sat 25 Jul, 8:00pm. boldtendencies.com Photographed by Luca Truffarelli.

We always ask this – but with you, it feels essential: if we took Peckham off the map for a moment, where are three cultural places or communities in London you return to – for inspiration, energy, or just a really good time?

Chelsea Physic Garden. A reminder of the medicinal, economic, cultural and environmental importance of plants to the survival and well-being of humankind.

National Gallery permanent collection. Former Culture Secretary Chris Smith spearheaded the historic policy that abolished entry fees for national museums and galleries, allowing us to wander in and see just one picture… My go-to is Zurbaran’s A Cup of Water and a Rose. A special pleasure. Kenneth Clark’s 100 Details in the National Gallery is a great souvenir too for when you can’t get to the gallery – an exercise in deep looking.

Sally Clarke’s Restaurant, for a really good time! Formal but familiar, the menu is a vibe. “Bowl of strawberries, brown sugar and cream” – what more could you ask for!!!

Find Hannah Barry at hannahbarry.com and on Insta @hannahbarrygallery

Euphoria
Until 12 September 2026

Bold Tendencies
Floors 7 – 10, Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park
95a Rye Lane
London, SE15 4ST

Info & tickets → boldtendencies.com
Insta → @boldtendencies