Design-Nation celebrates 25 years of supporting the UK's best designers with a new exhibition at The Hub, Sleaford
To celebrate 25 years of supporting British craft and design, Design-Nation, the leading membership portfolio for contemporary craft and design in the UK, presents Beneath the Surface: Material and Meaning, a new exhibition exploring memory, material, and meaning.
The exhibition opens at the Hub, a national centre for craft and design, on 6 December 2025 and runs until 15 March 2026.
Over 25 years Design-Nation, based in Lincoln’s Barbican Creative Hub, has helped thousands of designers to launch new products and develop and grow through pioneering progammes and opportunities.
Clare Edwards, Director of Design-Nation says: “As we mark 25 years of championing British craft and design, it feels especially fitting to celebrate here in Lincolnshire, where Design-Nation has had its home for over 10 years. Beneath the Surface showcases some of the UK’s most inspiring makers, and we’re proud to bring this national story of imagination and craftsmanship to the Hub in Sleaford. Lincolnshire is a place where innovation and heritage sit side by side, and this exhibition is an opportunity to recognise the region’s role in fostering bold, original design and to share that spirit with our audiences.”
Beneath the Surface brings together selected works by 26 leading UK artists and makers selected from Design-Nation’s portfolio of members. Their diverse practices span ceramics, textiles, glass, wood, metal, and more, offering a rich cross-section of contemporary craft.
Each artist explores personal and shared narratives of identity, memory, migration, transformation, and resilience. The artworks encourage us to slow down and look closer, revealing vulnerability beneath their surface and uncovering deeper stories through material, technique, and process. Rooted in lived experience and shaped by sustainable practice, these objects offer quiet yet profound reflections on the unseen forces that shape our lives.
In the late 1990s, the imaginative and indomitable champion of British design, Peta Levi MBE (1938-2008), founded New Designers in Business to offer manufacturing, marketing and publicity expertise to new designers. New Designers in Business developed into Design-Nation. In 2014, Clare Edwards took over the directorship, and merged Design-Nation with Design Factory, growing it a nationally recognised network dedicated to excellence, diversity, and sustainability in craft and design.