Devyani Saltzman

Working with Barbican’s Heads of artforms – across Cinema, Creative Collaboration, Immersive, Music, Theatre & Dance, and Visual Arts – Saltzman and the team will develop an inspiring, distinctive, and forward-looking arts and participation programme. The appointment follows an extensive international recruitment campaign, launched in autumn 2023, for an individual to lead the Barbican’s Arts and Participation team, with the skills and vision to steer the Barbican towards its next creative chapter. This appointment completes the Barbican’s search for engaged and experienced Directors to drive the organisation’s ongoing transformation: to grow and diversify its audiences, better serve its public, and fulfil its commitment to inspire, create connections, provoke debate, and reflect the world we live in. The role will act as an enabler for the arts, championing the industry, and connecting within and outside the organisation. Working with partners across the Square Mile, she will also play an important role in delivering Destination City, the City of London Corporation’s flagship programme which sets out a vision for the Square Mile to become a world-leading leisure destination for UK and international visitors, workers, and residents to enjoy. The City Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican.

Senior artistic programmer, multidisciplinary curator and cultural consultant working with organizations on cultural strategy, multidisciplinary programming and organizational transformation through a values, community and people-centred practice. Key clients include PEN America for the 2022 and 2023 PEN World Voices Festival in NYC and LA, as a Co-Curator of the US’s largest festival of art and ideas; The Textile Museum of Canada working with the Chief Curator and Head of Engagement on the strategic framework for the opening of their first permanent collection gallery, rooted in a community focused approach to object display; and Lenczner Slaght, developing the next chapter of the collection of one of Canada’s leading law firms, with a focus on emerging and established IBPOC Canadian artists.

Responsible for leading and collaborating with an incredible team of multidisciplinary programmers in growing the AGO’s public programs in service to multiple and diverse Toronto communities, across all disciplines including the visual arts, dance, music, talks and film. Highlights include creating the museum’s first dedicated performance platform, AGO Live, with Bojana Stancic, increasing audience numbers through high profile speaker series, curated by Kathleen McLean, and developing multi-institutional partnerships with the TSO, TPL, the National Ballet of Canada, and Art Toronto amongst others as well as supporting the growth of our Community Programs portfolio, helmed by Melissa Smith, with a specific focus on art and wellness. Worked to frame the museum as a cultural hub that reflects the diverse narratives of Torontonians through broad multidisciplinary engagement, working with artists on a local, national and international level to support their creative practice. Recent team successes include developing over 100+ digital adult programs during the pandemic, including curator talks and weekly conversations with artists such as Rajni Perera, Jagdeep Raina and Kapwani Kiwanga; the AGO Live’s first original commission ‘Songs of Heaven’ inspired by our Rubens exhibition, with Owen Pallett, Cris Derksen and the Choir of St. James Cathedral; and collaborations with Bessie Award-winning Indigenous choreographer Daina Ashbee and Brendan Fernandes. Adept at fundraising across corporate and individual giving. Responsible for bringing in multi-year, six- figure funding from the TD Ready Commitment for Public Programming at the AGO. Currently assisting the museum establish its first dedicated fund for South Asian art rooted in community giving. Adept at stewardship and cultivating established and next generation philanthropy.

Tasked with updating and reinvigorating an international arts and creativity incubator's literary program to reflect a diverse, 21st century mandate while honouring legacy. In charge of year-round literary programming and public events working in collaboration with the Visual Arts, Dance, and Indigenous Arts departments. Highlights include summits on deceleration in the digital age, journalism in the age of illiberalism and launching the Centre’s first environmental and investigative journalism programs.

Founding Curator of Luminato’s Literary and Ideas Program. Responsible for inviting Canadian and international authors to Toronto each year for a celebration of the written word on subjects as diverse as the role of politics in art, contemporary African literature and E-books and the future of print. Luminato guest authors include Ben Okri, Roddy Doyle, Chimamanda Adichie, Aravind Adiga, Neil Gaiman, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, David Bezmozgis, Tash Aw, Annie Proulx, Carole Enahoro, Hari Kunzru, Margaret Atwood, David Remnick, Hisham Matar, Richard Ford, Ann Patchett, Yiyun Li, Eleanor Catton and Azar Nafisi, among many others. Responsible for forming and managing strategic partnerships with a number of local and international organizations, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, the British Council, the Toronto Public Library system, Diaspora Dialogues and Hay Festivals (UK).

Representation: Samantha Haywood Transatlantic Agency www.transatlanticagency.com samantha@transatlanticagency.com Reviews for 'Shooting Water': A poignant memoir. -The New York Times Saltzman marvellously dissects the cultural and political complexities of India. -The Globe and Mail A must read. One of the most beautiful and haunting memoirs I've ever read. -Montreal Gazette Saltzman never loses any of the threads she delicately weaves together, creating a lush, evocative memoir that is emotional but never cloying. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Saltzman's haunting debut is a masterpiece of the memoir form...As the daughter of divorced parents she beautifully delineates the emotional fallout from her early choice to live with her father and her struggle between the desire for independence and the youthful, aching yearning for romantic love. Her acute sense of dislocation and loneliness is palpable within the lush descriptive passages that bring the lands of India and Sri Lanka to vivid, violent life. Precise, elegant prose continually rises above the typical journey-into-womanhood memoir. An essential read. -Library Journal (starred review) Saltzman proves herself a deft writer in this deeply evocative memoir. -Cleveland Plain Dealer The narrative pulls us into the story from the first line. Shooting Water is a captivating story of second chances, something most of us have wished for at some point in our lives -Geist An unorthodox mélange-everything packed into one volume of elegant, poetic, immensely readable prose -The Hindu, India A moving debut. -Tehelka, India The prose is as sensitive as it is powerful. -Business Line, India A winner. Shooting Water is a powerful document that examines the nature of rupture, and the capacity of human beings to reach out and rework relationships through love. -The Sunday Tribune, India

Writing credits include The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Marie Claire, The Literary Review of Canada, POV, Montage, TOK: An Anthology of New Toronto Writing, Room Literary Journal and Tehelka, India's independent weekly news magazine. Juror - National Magazine Awards; Canada Council for the Arts; Ontario Arts Council; Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Advisory committees - Project Bookmark Canada; The Toronto Museum Project; AGO Maharajas Exhibit (2012) and The Toronto Film Festival Gala (2013) Norwich Showcase Alumni (Writers' Centre Norwich/British Council)

Alumni of Hertford College