The V&A South Kensington is shining a necessary spotlight on inclusivity with Design and Disability, a groundbreaking exhibition running from June 7th, 2025, through February 15th, 2026. This vital show redefines design history by placing Design and Disability, at the center of the conversation—celebrating the creative, political, and cultural contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent individuals from the 1940s to today.
Featuring over 170 objects across disciplines such as fashion, technology, architecture, and zine culture, Design and Disability reveals how the lived experiences of Disabled people have continuously reshaped and reimagined what design can—and should—be. Rather than presenting disability as an afterthought, this exhibition asserts it as a site of innovation, resistance, and imagination.
The exhibition unfolds across three thematic sections: Visibility, Tools, and Living. Visitors are welcomed into an intentionally accessible space with tactile maps, sensory guides, and seating designed for rest and reflection. In the Visibility section, pieces like Sky Cubacub’s Rebirth Garments Binder and Marvel Harris’s First Swim after Rebirth explore identity, queer joy, and self-affirmation—demonstrating how design can affirm and empower.
Tools focuses on ingenuity—how Disabled individuals have hacked, adapted, and created technologies that meet real, everyday needs. Highlights include Wayne Westerman’s Touchstream Keyboard, a precursor to today’s touchscreen devices, and Cindy Garni’s homemade prosthetic accessories, which offer low-cost, high-impact alternatives to commercial prosthetics.
The final section, Living, imagines a more inclusive future. From Helen Stratford’s Public S/Pacing—a rest-enabling blanket for public spaces—to Wendy Jacob’s Squeeze Chair, designed to offer calming pressure for neurodivergent users, this part of Design and Disability emphasizes care as a design principle.
Curated by Natalie Kane, Design and Disability is a celebration of Disabled people not only as users of design but as its radical thinkers and creators. It’s more than an exhibition—it’s a call to action, inviting the design world to reimagine who gets to shape the future.
The best lovers are good with their hands, issued by AIDS Ahead part of the BRITISH DEAF ASSOCIATION, 1992
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London
Courtesy of VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London