I only dance, I wish we could sing
Raisa Kabir
28 March – 5 July 2026

Raisa Kabir is an interdisciplinary artist and weaver based in London. Kabir utilises woven text and textiles, sound, video, and performance to materialise concepts concerning the cultural politics of cloth, labour, and embodied geographies. Their (un)weaving performances comment on power, production, disability, and the queer brown body as a living archive of collective trauma.

For their solo exhibition at the Hub, Kabir will present new artworks that respond to the context of our location beside the River Slea. Kabir will present new coracle artworks, painted and filled with materials such as cotton, silk, indigo, cochineal, jute, and flax, exploring the material histories and textile networks between Asia and Europe. Using the architectural steel structure of the exhibition space, they will connect their large-scale looms via thread and loom weights.

Kabir will expand their research into the textile industry in Lincolnshire, textile archives, and South Asian diasporic migration. Raisa’s work responds to histories of textile technologies originating in East, Central, and South Asia, which have directly influenced European centres of technology and weaving knowledge.

Common Ground: Sleaford’s Shared Stories
18 July – 8 November 2026

This major new collaboration with Sleaford Museum will explore local heritage through contemporary art and community participation. The project will culminate in new exhibitions presented at both the Hub and Sleaford Museum, with new artist commissions and residencies shown alongside heritage and historical objects. Together, these will unearth and reinterpret objects from Sleaford Museum’s collection.

Through creative interventions and intergenerational dialogue, Common Ground: Sleaford’s Shared Stories will offer new perspectives on local heritage and create a platform for diverse community voices. Central to the project is the question: who and what has historically been excluded from regional heritage and cultural spaces, and how can this be actively changed?

This exhibition is the second in the trilogy Sleaford: People, Place, Possibility, which focuses on our local context. It follows the exhibition Together We Are Powerful (2023), which brought together shared stories and foregrounded the power that lies in togethering.

This project has been made possible by the Art Fund’s Reimagine programme, with support from Lincoln Museum, who are supporting an artist commission.

Christopher Dresser
Featuring Gabriele Beveridge, Alice Channer, Coco Crampton, and Magdalene Odundo
28 November 2026 – 7 March 2027

The Hub will present a major exhibition celebrating the work and legacy of Christopher Dresser (1834–1904), a pioneering designer of ceramics, glassware, metalware, two-dimensional design, furniture, and interiors. Dresser is often cited as the first industrial designer, embracing modern manufacturing processes to create affordable, well-designed objects for a growing consumer market—ideas that remain radical and relevant today.

Unlike his contemporaries, such as William Morris, Dresser remains under-recognised in public consciousness. This exhibition will reposition Dresser within the design canon through key loans from private collections and expert insights. The Hub will present an array of Dresser’s objects, many of which are rare examples of his work, ranging from ceramic vessels and metalwork to furniture and textiles.

Alongside Dresser, four contemporary artists will be exhibited whose practices challenge and echo Dresser’s morals and ideals, exploring intersections of craft, design, and industrial production today. The artists have been selected for their innovative use of materials and design processes, responding to Dresser’s radical approach from a 21st-century perspective.