Today we announce our exhibition programme for the next 12 months, presenting a diverse range of the best in contemporary art. The season will include new national and local partnerships with Hayward Gallery Touring, Wellcome Collection and Leicester artist Jemisha Maadhavji. The organisation will also present A Decade of Exhibitions, an archive show and publication documenting the first 10 years of the organisation’s flagship art galleries.
From January to May 2026, we will present Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles, an ambitious group exhibition exploring how artists are using textiles in surprising and radical ways. Illuminating the diverse roles textiles play in contemporary artistic practice, the exhibition brings together artists who take the intimate and domestic quality of textiles and transform them into theatrical, bold, unsettling and humorous artworks that inspire, challenge and offer new ways of thinking. The exhibition is curated by Caroline Achaintre with Hayward Gallery Touring.
Jason Wilsher-Mills’ major solo exhibition Jason and the Adventure of 254, will launch June 2026, in the leading artist’s largest and most personal commission to date. The show is a joyful exploration of the body, drawing on the artist’s experience of becoming disabled as a child. Reimagining the gallery space as a hospital ward, Jason’s installation of sculptures, illustrations and interactive dioramas challenges cultural and societal perceptions surrounding disability, medicine and the human body. The exhibition is presented in partnership with Wellcome Collection, London and will run until August 2026.
Jemisha Maadhavji will present a new exhibition from October to December 2026, including a survey of her recent work and latest commissions. The exhibition celebrates a vision of luxury, defined by Jemisha as a ‘flawless connection with nature’, where highly detailed portraiture meets ornamentation. Jemisha will present a range of oil paintings as a form of installation. Since graduating from De Montfort University (DMU), Jemisha has gained a national profile after featuring on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Award and through recent exhibitions at Nottingham Castle and Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Jemisha is a popular voice in the Leicester artist community and has also taught oil painting as part of Attenborough Arts Centre’s Creative Courses programme.
Launching the season in January 2026, we will celebrate 10 years of our three art galleries launched in 2016 with A Decade of Exhibitions, an archive show from January to May 2026 looking back at how the new building has enabled an ambitious and high-quality artistic programme, presenting the work of over 300 artists.
Andrew Fletcher, Director of Attenborough Arts Centre, said:
‘Our exhibitions programme for 2026 builds on the strong foundations we have laid in our artistic programme over the past 10 years and enables us to look ahead confidently to the future.’
Pamela Vivas, Visual Arts Officer at Attenborough Arts Centre, said:
‘It is very exciting to enter into our second decade with significant new partnerships with Hayward Gallery Touring, Wellcome Collection and Jemisha Maadhavji, demonstrating how our exhibition programme continues to grow in scale, reach and impact.’
Rebecca Wymant, Exhibitions Researcher, said:
‘A Decade of Exhibitions is an opportunity to celebrate the diverse range of artists, communities and ideas which have shaped our galleries over the past 10 years. Reflecting on that history also highlights the exciting possibilities ahead, as we continue to champion ambitious contemporary art into the next decade.’
Exhibitions:
Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles in partnership with Hayward Gallery Touring – Galleries 1 & 2
Launch: Thursday 29 January 2026
Exhibition open to public: Friday 30 January to Sunday 3 May 2026
Jason and the Adventure of 254 in partnership with Wellcome Collection – Galleries 1 & 2
Launch: Thursday 4 June 2026
Exhibition open to public: Friday 5 June to Sunday 30 August 2026
Jemisha Maadhavji – Gallery 2
Exhibition open to public: October to December 2026
Image: Phyllida Barlow, untitled: canvasracks; 2018-2019. Concrete, cotton-duck canvas, hardboard, paint, plastic, plywood, steel, tape, timber. Dimensions variable. Installation view, ‘Phyllida Barlow. cul-de-sac’, Royal Academy of Arts. London, UK, February 23 – June 23, 2019. © Phyllida Barlow Estate. Courtesy the Estate of Phyllida Barlow and Hauser & Wirth. Collection of Action 4 Equality Scotland. Photo: Damian Griffiths.