Designing for everyone: Inside V&A Dundee’s groundbreaking Design & Disability exhibition
- Andrew Batchelor
- 28 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Design has the power to shape how we experience the world, but for millions of disabled people it can also determine how independently, confidently and comfortably they live their everyday lives.
V&A Dundee’s latest exhibition, Design & Disability, places those experiences at its very heart, bringing together more than 170 objects that span fashion, architecture, technology, photography, jewellery, performance and product design.
Rather than presenting disability as something to be solved, the exhibition instead asks visitors to consider how design itself has often failed disabled people - and how disabled designers, artists and communities are now leading some of the most innovative creative thinking anywhere in the world.
Organised around the themes of Visibility, Creativity and Living, the exhibition explores how disability intersects with identity, politics, healthcare and everyday life.
Visitors move through deeply personal stories alongside internationally significant design, discovering objects that are as visually striking as they are thought-provoking.
As someone born with several different disabilities, this exhibition meant a great deal to me personally.
It is rare to see disability explored with such confidence and optimism. Rather than focusing on barriers, V&A Dundee celebrates disabled people as innovators, artists, designers and changemakers whose lived experiences continue to influence the future of design.
Three themes that reshape how we think about disability
The exhibition is divided into three interconnected sections that build naturally upon one another.
Visibility examines representation, identity and political history, asking who gets seen and how disability has been portrayed over time.
Here, visitors encounter everything from Harry McAuslan’s striking 1992 AIDS awareness poster created with the British Deaf Association to EvaBelle Jewelry’s beautifully crafted MCP/CMC/IP Splint Ring.
Instead of disguising a medical support device, the ring transforms it into something elegant, challenging the notion that adaptive equipment should be hidden from view.
Creativity showcases disability as a catalyst for artistic innovation. Radical fashion, performance and photography reveal how disabled artists continue to redefine expectations surrounding beauty, identity and self-expression.
Rebirth Garments demonstrates how adaptive clothing can be simultaneously inclusive, fashionable and empowering, while Drag Syndrome celebrates drag performers with Down syndrome through bold imagery that challenges stereotypes around disability and performance.
Maya Scarlette’s spectacular carnival costume, The Birth of Venus, is another standout example, illustrating how disability can inspire extraordinary wearable art.
The final section, Living, shifts towards everyday life, demonstrating how thoughtful design improves independence and quality of life.
From adaptive products to community-led innovation, this part of the exhibition reminds visitors that inclusive design rarely benefits only one group - it often improves experiences for everyone.
Key objects that tell remarkable stories
Among the exhibition’s many highlights is Hands of X, a pioneering research project developed at the University of Dundee by Pullin and Cook between 2016 and 2020.
Rather than treating prosthetic hands purely as medical devices, the project reimagines them as expressions of personality, fashion and identity.
It asks a simple but profound question: why shouldn’t prosthetics reflect the individuality of the people who wear them?
Photography also provides some of the exhibition’s most emotional moments. Marvel Harris’ First Swim after Rebirth captures the deeply personal experience of returning to the water following gender-affirming surgery, presenting a moving reflection on identity, confidence and freedom.
Historical material is equally compelling. Harry McAuslan’s colourful 1992 poster, The best lovers are good with their hands, demonstrates how accessible communication became a vital part of public health campaigns during the AIDS crisis, while simultaneously celebrating Deaf culture through British Sign Language.
Each object contributes to a much larger conversation. Rather than existing as isolated exhibits, they work together to demonstrate that disability has always influenced design - and increasingly, disability is helping lead it.
Art that stayed with me
Although every visitor will undoubtedly leave with different favourites, one artwork resonated with me more than any other.
Kirsty Stevens, from Fife, who lives with multiple sclerosis, has transformed her own MRI brain scans and radiology reports into an extraordinary series of layered drawings on sheets of waxed paper.
Each translucent layer represents how clinicians analyse the progression of multiple sclerosis over time, gradually building a visual map of lesions within the brain.
What begins as medical imagery becomes something deeply human.
Seeing an invisible neurological condition transformed into art was incredibly powerful. It communicates uncertainty, resilience and lived experience in a way that words alone rarely can.
The work struck an especially personal chord because my own dad lives with multiple sclerosis.
Watching someone turn such a challenging condition into something creative and beautiful was one of the exhibition’s most emotional moments, demonstrating exactly how art and design can help communicate experiences that often feel impossible to explain.
An exhibition that invites participation
One aspect V&A Dundee continues to excel at is making exhibitions feel immersive rather than observational.
From its acclaimed Video Games exhibition in the museum’s early years through to Design & Disability, interaction has become one of the museum’s greatest strengths.
Rather than keeping every object at arm’s length, visitors are encouraged to engage closely with selected exhibits, helping them better understand how many of these designs function in real life.
That philosophy feels particularly appropriate here. Accessibility is not simply something to read about - it is something visitors are invited to experience.
Equally significant is the museum’s decision to make the exhibition free to visit. Unlike the equivalent exhibition at London’s V&A South Kensington, removing the admission charge makes this important exhibition available to far wider audiences and reinforces its message that inclusive design should be accessible to everyone.
More than an exhibition
Design & Disability succeeds because it goes far beyond displaying interesting objects.
It challenges long-held assumptions about disability while celebrating the creativity, innovation and resilience of disabled communities across the world.
Every gallery encourages visitors to reconsider what good design really means - not simply creating beautiful objects, but designing a world where everyone can participate equally.
For disabled visitors, it offers something even rarer: representation that feels authentic, empowering and hopeful.
It is one of V&A Dundee’s most thoughtful exhibitions to date, and one that demonstrates how design can do far more than solve problems - it can tell stories, challenge perceptions and ultimately change the way we see one another.
