Textures of Being

Contemporary Craft is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Textures of Being, on view September 25, 2026 – January 16, 2027 in the Main Gallery. Textures of Being brings together 14 artists whose work honors the body—in all its variations, sensitivities and wisdom—to reimagine disability as both a form of freedom and a distinct, intimate lens through which the world is encountered, shaped, and perceived.

This exhibition seeks to address that while 1 in 4 adults in the United States lives with a disability, our built environment and cultural systems continue to privilege an imagined bodily norm—often neglecting the rich variation of how bodies move, feel, perceive, and relate. Textures of Being shifts the focus on disability justice from compliance and accommodation to attuning to the sensory realities of disabled life—textures of resistance and adaptation, fragility and strength, constraint and imagination. Together, the exhibiting artists create a portrait of embodiment that moves beyond symbolic ‘inclusion’ and moves toward a fuller understanding of what it means to inhabit a body. Textures of Being invites viewers to slow down, to feel, to listen, and to recognize accessibility, inclusivity, and sensory difference as shared human concerns. 

Textures of Being will be accompanied by Community Voices, a tandem exhibition in Contemporary Craft’s Gerri Kay Exhibition Cases. This exhibition will be on view October 23, 2026 – February 20, 2027 and will feature artists from Creative Citizens Studio (CCS).

Textures of Being is part of Handwork 2026, Craft in America's nationwide semiquincentennial collaboration showcasing the importance of the handmade and celebrating the diversity of craft that defines America.