An accessible exhibition by internationally exhibited disabled artist and printmaker, Fae Kilburn, in partnership with over 100 people that identify as deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent (DDN). Commissioned by Peterborough Presents.
Thursday 11 September to Saturday 27 September
12 – 4:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday
Unit 27 in Queensgate Shopping Centre
What is the exhibition about?
In Summer 2025, Fae held digital open calls, inviting people to send in their lived experience, making it accessible for people to contribute their voices to the project from their homes. Fae also ran workshops across the city, creating art with participants and talking to them about their experience of life as a DDN person. People made heat-transferred artworks onto fabric, and printed their own protest t-shirts. The conversations throughout the summer have been incorporated into Fae’s work. The art celebrates individuals’ lives, whilst also reflecting the barriers they face. The work is a collaboration between their narrative and her art.
Fae’s exhibition, The Power of Protest and Print, combines textile and print for both their historical use and symbolism of protest. The artwork on display explores over a hundred years of disability protest slogans and lived experience, exploring different elements of DDN people’s lives.
Content warning: some work contains swearing, and references to assisted suicide, trauma, and abuse.
How can the public interact?
All work is made to be touched. Please touch and interact with the work. In the gallery space are large fabric panels, and a t-shirt protest room, full of t-shirts. All artworks are a mixture of fabric, text, and imagery. Each gives an insight into people’s lives and the history of disability activism, fighting for change, and celebrating truth.
Fae has also created an additional 40 protest t-shirts which form a trail across Peterborough. A full list of these locations are available on the Peterborough Presents website.
Fae hopes this body of work encourages people to celebrate different perspectives and opens up conversations on deafness, disability, and neurodivergence.
Access information for the venue
We’ve got a new webpage all about access for Unit 27. Please click the below button
About Reasonable Adjustments
This workshop is part of a project called Reasonable Adjustment 2.0. The aim of the project is to mark the 30th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, and 15th anniversary of the Equality Act. We are using these anniversaries to make artworks that capture honest feelings and experiences of what it’s like to be Deaf, Disabled, and/or Neurodivergent (DDN).
Funder information and contributors
Funded by Arts Council England. Supported by Queensgate Peterborough and Shape Arts. With huge thanks to our RAD Community Panel: Disability Peterborough, RNIB, DeafBlind UK, Peterborough & District Deaf Children’s Society, Voiceability Peterborough and Lore Green.
