Salman Rushdie, John Akomfrah and Pankaj Mishra are among more than 170 cultural figures who have signed an open letter to the Barbican expressing concern over the departure of its arts director, Devyani Saltzman.

Saltzman, who became director of arts and participation at the Barbican in February 2024, is leaving the institution amid a significant leadership change a few weeks after its new CEO joined.

Saltzman was recently named as one of the 40 most influential women working in the arts in the UK, and was described as the driving force behind the organisation. Her departure comes months after she unveiled a five-year creative vision for the Barbican.

“We are writing as a group of global majority creative and cultural leaders and allies to express our profound disappointment and alarm at the decision to curtail Devyani Saltzman’s tenure,” the letter said.

“Ms Saltzman was appointed with great fanfare as a senior artistic leader, with a mandate to shape the Barbican’s artistic vision and deepen its relationship with communities. Her departure, after a comparatively short time in post and coinciding with the arrival of a new chief executive, raises serious questions about the institution’s commitment to sustaining global majority leadership at the highest levels.”

Saltzman will leave the organisation in May and there are no plans to replace her. In the last 18 months she had become the Barbican’s public face, laying out her vision in several interviews.

She was vocal about the need for London’s cultural institutions to have leadership reflecting the diverse city they inhabit. “We are actually in a new wave of next-generation leadership that hopefully is going to shift the model,” she said in 2024.

The Barbican has said it is unable to comment on individual staffing matters. But signatories of the letter, who also include the Grammy-nominated sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar, the musician and producer Nitin Sawhney, the American playwright David Adjmi and the Indian novelist Kiran Desai, said this was “not an ordinary HR issue”.

“This is a major public cultural institution, funded and held in trust for the people of this city and country. A decision affecting its most senior artistic role, and one of the very few leaders of south Asian and racially diverse heritage in its history, has sector‑wide and community‑wide implications,” they said.

Other signatories include the Pakistani-British novelist Kamila Shamsie, the Armenian-Canadian film-maker Atom Egoyan, the British curator Mark Sealy and the former British Council arts director Skinder Hundal. Many have worked with, in and around the Barbican over decades.

They called on the Barbican board and the City of London Corporation to publicly clarify whether the role had been formally deleted, the processes that led to the decision, and how artistic leadership at the Barbican would now be configured.

They also asked for the publication of data on the diversity of the Barbican’s senior leadership and governance.

In a response seen by the Guardian, the Barbican’s chair, William Russell, reiterated that he was unable to comment on a confidential matter concerning a staff member, and he linked to the centre’s press statement celebrating Saltzman’s contribution.

The Barbican’s leadership has had several changes over the past five years. In 2021, Nicholas Kenyon resigned as managing director after 14 years after staff told the Guardian that the Barbican was “institutionally racist”. He was followed by the former BBC arts correspondent Will Gompertz, who left after two years in the job.

Saltzman joined during a row caused by the Barbican backing out of hosting a talk by Mishra about the Holocaust and allegations that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

The Barbican has been approached for comment.