DUNDEE.- Dundee Contemporary Arts announced details of its 2025/26 exhibitions programme, which will bring work by over 75 artists to Dundee. With themes ranging from motherhood to land use and featuring major presentations of video work and work by disabled artists, this rich and varied programme will feature work in a range of forms and mediums, and by artists at all stages of their careers. This year will also bring a much-needed major refurbishment of the gallery spaces, including significant upgrades to lighting.   

Beth Bate, Director, said “We’re thrilled to bring such a rich and diverse programme to our audiences next year, with work by over 75 artists across a range of mediums and tackling vital themes. I’m also deeply grateful to Dundee City Council for their continued investment in our building, and the upgrades to our galleries that will ensure we can continue to present world-class exhibitions in years to come”.

Tiffany Boyle, Head of Exhibitions, said “This next year’s programme looks both forward and backwards – with artist Lauren Gault looking to palaeontology, our moving image programme including the work of Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé who exhibited in Scotland through the late-1980s and 90s, and Acts of Creation surveying the figure of the mother throughout art history. It’s a programme that simultaneously explores process and ways of working together, seen particularly through our forthcoming group exhibition as part of the We Contain Multitudes project. I'm incredibly proud of the depth and variety of the 2025-26 programme and can't wait to welcome audiences into DCA galleries”

Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood 
Sat 19 April – Sun 13 July 2025  

This major group exhibition, curated by Hettie Judah with Hayward Gallery Touring, brings together the joys, heartaches, myths, mess and mishaps of motherhood through over 100 artworks, from the feminist avant-garde to the present day.  

 Featuring the work of more than 60 modern and contemporary artists, this exhibition approaches motherhood as a creative enterprise, albeit one at times tempered by ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Acts of Creation explores lived experience of motherhood, offering a complex account that engages with contemporary concerns about gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.  

Featuring painting, photography, sculpture, sound and film, artists in the exhibition include: Felicity Allen; Janine Antoni; Cassie Arnold; Bobby Baker; Elina Brotherus; Liesel Burisch; Cathy Cade; Lea Cetera; Jai Chuhan; Eileen Cooper; Renee Cox; Dorothy Cross; Rineke Dijkstra; Natalie Djurberg and Hans Berg; Leni Dothan; Marlene Dumas; Catherine Elwes; Tracey Emin; Jessa Fairbrother; Feministo; Fenix; Maeve Gilmore; Anna Grevenitis; Camille Henrot; Susan Hiller; Ghislaine Howard; Elsa James; Chantal Joffe; Claudette Johnson; Mary Kelly; Liss LaFleur; Sally Mann; MATERNAL FANTASIES; Mother Art; Wangechi Mutu; Ishbel Myerscough; Everlyn Nicodemus; Catherine Opie; Fani Parali; Celia Paul; Cathie Pilkington; Laure Prouvost; Paula Rego; Su Richardson; Sister Seven; Monica Sjöö; Annegret Soltau; Tabitha Soren; Heather Spears; Nancy Spero; Hannah Starkey; Emma Talbot; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; VALIE EXPORT; Christine Voge; Del LaGrace Volcano; Barbara Walker; Caroline Walker; Carrie Mae Weems; Nancy Willis; Hermione Wiltshire; Hermione Wiltshire and Clare Bottomley; Carmen Winant; Daphne Wright; Billie Zangewa.  

Hettie Judah, Curator, says: “I am so thrilled to be bringing Acts of Creation to DCA - I am such an admirer of their programme, and of their ongoing commitment to supporting mothers and other caregivers. I couldn't think of a better grand finale for this Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition. “

Lauren Gault  
Sat 25 October 2025 – Sun 18 January 2026 

A major new exhibition from Lauren Gault, who is based between Glasgow, Scotland and Magheramorne, Northern Ireland. Her research-led, process-driven practice considers the political, ethical and emotional implications of our changing interactions with matter and the environment. Engaging with multiple fields, her practice seeks to expand discussions around land usership, voice and fluid materials.

This solo exhibition marks the first show in a Scottish institution for the artist in over a decade, with new commissions in sculpture and print, the latter facilitated through a production residency in DCA Print Studio. The artist’s new body of work explores relationships between palaeontology, agriculture and mineral cycles, and expanded readings of the ‘Echo’ myth within land relations. Collaborating with forensic imaging experts at the University of Dundee’s School of Science and Engineering, Gault will work with advanced tools and techniques, combining them with research into locally gathered museological collections related to the region’s geological history. These technologies and materials will inform and shape the creation of her new sculptural work.  
  
Lauren Gault says: “I am delighted to be presenting this new body of work at DCA, in a city of such huge importance to me. I studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), where the first seeds of my practice appeared, and lived in Dundee for the first formative years as a newly graduated artist. The exhibition will make visible the relationship between this city and my work, bringing together ambitious collaboration with world-leading research facilities at University of Dundee, DCA Print Studio and museological collections across the region.”

 Moving Image at DCA  
Sat 8 February – Sun 23 March 2026  

DCA’s Gallery 1will transform into an artist’s moving image space, with a selection of film works by artists including Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé and Francis Dosoo. 

We Contain Multitudes  
Sat 8 February – Sun 23 March 2026 

A group show featuring work by Andrew Gannon, Daisy Lafarge, Jo Longhurst and Nnena Kalu. Across textiles, photography, sculpture and drawing, the exhibition will explore envelopment, enclosure, support, surrounding, and restriction.   

 This show is developed as part of We Contain Multitudes, three-year collaborative project between Collective, DCA and LUX Scotland, funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The project aims to create systemic change in the visual arts sector in Scotland, tackling ableism in the sector and imagining a future in which disabled artists have increased access to opportunities, are visible, and their expertise and experiences are truly valued.