Natalie D Kane
LightNews LightNews
ndkane.bsky.social
Natalie D Kane
@ndkane.bsky.social
2.7K followers 510 following 150 posts
Curator of Digital Design at V&A. Trustee - The National Videogame Museum. Advisory board, Society for Computers and Law. Curator - Design and Disability open til Feb 26.

she/they
ndkane.com IM SORRY ILL FIX IT
Posts Replies Media Videos
ndkane.bsky.social
A good way to deal with burnout? Trees, lots of trees.
A park with a tree to the left, underneath a baby deer shelters in shadow. A lush green forest, densely covered in trees, a path running through the middle. A very large green oak in a park, the grass bleached by the sun. To the left a small lake. A river, surrounded by trees.
July 19, 2025 at 11:49 AM
ndkane.bsky.social
Design and Disability opens today at the V&A! We’re so happy to share it with you all. Disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent people and their companions go free. www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/...
A row of brightly coloured posters against a white tiled wall. The posters say ‘Design and Disability’ on each left hand bottom corner. On the left lime green poster, a photo of Davina Starr, a member of drag syndrome in a white wig and bright make up under a spotlight. The central light blue poster has a black and white photo of Marvel Harris wrapped in a towel emerging from the sea. The right pink poster is an image of Sky Cubacub in a pink binder and dragon scale headdress.
June 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
You think this is me being excited about the exhibition sign going up (I am!) but actually I was showing exactly where the large quantity of plane tree pollen was rushing in to attack me.
A large wooden sign hangs between two pale marble columns above two closed black doors. On the sign reads in fuschia pink ‘Design and disability’.
May 27, 2025 at 10:42 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Day one of Design and Disability install and I’m impressed by the range of skills in our team, flower pressing by @musebloom.bsky.social is now a trade for hire. Also, early advance copies of our book are in the building!
A book stacked on top of another on a table. The book cover is predominantly white. In the top right hand corner is the main title text in bold sans serif black font, reading Design and Disability. At the bottom left it reads in capitals, 10 Tales of Accessible Design. Across the front cover on a white background, from left to right is a series of long stripes of differing widths that go from top to bottom that go from each edge, with staggered gaps in between. They are in a colour spectrum starting from turquoise, to blue, to mauve, to purple to pink.
May 19, 2025 at 7:02 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Rumours were true! #BDCAM25
April 3, 2025 at 9:49 AM
ndkane.bsky.social
Sadly missed the first day of #BDCAM25 as I’m deep in exhibition preparation however I’ll be there tomorrow as Anna Mladentseva and I will be talking about our work conserving mobile apps!
April 2, 2025 at 6:24 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Correction:
Yesssss sickos meme
January 4, 2025 at 1:37 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Went and saw the real-fake food exhibition at The Japan House, and especially loved the use of them for food education (such as showing different stages that food goes bad), even though it set off my ‘scientific image standardisation history’ brain because what is the perfect egg gone bad!!
A display of fake foods on a pink table. In the foreground is a beautifully marbled Kobe steak set on a green leaf. Above it is a delicately balanced tray of takoyaki with mayonnaise and fish flakes. To the left is a pot of silken tofu in a light broth. None of it is real but everything looks like it. A series of food paints in a wood shelving unit for fake foods, labelled with their specific foods. For example: a bright spring green is labelled in English and Japanese with ‘bok choi’, a pale yellow labelled ‘chicken skin’, a caramel brown labelled ‘fried chicken’, a charcoal grey labelled ‘mackerel’ A series of fake foods displayed on a table for the use of food education. On the left is a set of senbei (rice crackers) which are gradually darkened in colour to show them rotting and eventually cracking over time, to show their degradation. On the top right is a diagram illustrating the different grades preparation of carrots for those in care environments. On the bottom right is a decontructed cheesecake. A hyper real fake chocolate ice cream sundae. The balls of ice cream are dark chocolate, on a bed of cream, nestled on curls of butter with a dark syrup at the bottom.
November 16, 2024 at 4:53 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Looking forward to reading my copy of Rights Not Charity: Protest Textiles and Disability Activism and attending tonight’s online talk with curator and author Gill Cranshaw with Common Threads Press tonight at 7pm! Pay what you can model: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/craft-in-c...
A copy of a book entitled Rights Not Charity: Protest Textiles and Disability Activism by Gill Cranshaw lies on a bright orange scarf which is very much a work in progress by the photographer. The cover has an illustration of a trade union style protest banner which reads ‘Disabled People fight back, equality, Nothing about us without us’.
September 29, 2023 at 2:51 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
It’s Digital Design Weekend at the V&A on 23-24 September and the Design and Digital section are doing a few free tours of our galleries and collections! Join us.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/5Oz7Jmvd6Q/digital-design-weekend-2023
Tour details: Guided tours led by V&A staff lasting approximately 20 minutes, meeting point Learning Centre Reception. Behind the scenes of Patric D Prince: Digital Art Visionary, Saturday, 12.00. Join curators Melanie Lenz and Livia Turnbull for tour of their display ‘Patric D Prince: Digital Art Visionary’ and learn about the collection and legacy of on of the most important collectors of early digital art practiced. Global Digital Art & Design, Saturday, 15.00: This talk will take you on a journey across the global South to explore global digital art. led by Donata Miller-Obebe, Assistant Curator, Africa Diaspora, this session will consider how to contextualise and surface global narratives. Collecting Digital - Five Objects, Five Challenges, Saturday, 15.00: How do we collect digital design today? Curator Natalie Kane address the challenge of preserving our digital heritage in this short talk. Digital Design and consumer electronics, Sunday, 15.00
September 4, 2023 at 12:52 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
A week off in which I have been mostly knitting, actually resting(!) and going to the show I wanted to see the most, Carrie Mae Weem’s Reflections for Now at the Barbican which I recommend so much to all who can make it this final week. Weem’s thoughts and voice are given so much space, a real joy.
Two large black and white photographs in black frames on a white wall. The left photograph, a black woman (the artist, Carrie Mae Weems) is wearing a black strappy top, smoking, and is having her hair combed lovingly by a black woman at a wooden kitchen table. A low hanging lamp is in the centre of the photograph lighting the scene. The photograph on the right pictures the same woman is now sitting at the same table, with the same lamp, with two friends sitting either side. The friend to the left, a black woman, is barely visible as she moves with excitement or laughter, the camera unable to capture her properly due to the low light level. The white woman on the right is also laughing, with leas movement, her hands on the table mirroring her friend. The artist in the centre rests her head on her hand, laughing with more reserve, looking down at her drink, less moved by whatever the joke was. A piece of contextual text written by Carrie Mae Weems for the exhibition, black text on a white wall. It reads: “I use my own constructed image as a vehicle for questioning ideas about the role of tradition, the nature of family, monogamy, polygamy, relationships between men and women, between women and their children, and between women and other women - underscoring the critical problems and the possible resolves. In one way or another, my work endlessly explodes the limits of tradition. I'm determined to find new models to live by." An almost sepia tinted colour photograph in a white mount with a black frame against a white wall. A globe with an aged tone stands alone in the centre of the image, with a focus on the Atlantic Ocean tilted towards the centre of the frame. Africa is to the right and South America is visible with North America just visible. On the mount in the dead centre reads “A Hot Spot in a Corrupt World”. A black and white photograph on a white wall in a white Mount and black frame. The photograph features three black women and one white women talking in a garden in full length black dress and large white feathered angel wings.
September 2, 2023 at 11:51 AM
ndkane.bsky.social
Popped some new batteries in this delightful Italian space age clock radio, a find from yesterday’s Peckham Salvage Yards. The 538A, it was designed in the early 70s in Italy by Adriano Rampoldi and has made me very happy to be living not too far from some MW transmitters.
A bright orange clock radio, with a black face with white hands and hour markers. The radio part is inlaid in the base, with silver brushed steel knobs. The brand of the clock says ‘BUSH’ in the top left corner and along the bottom is the display, where it says long or medium which can be alternated with the knobs and a list of radio stations from BBC to Commercial and Local.
August 28, 2023 at 12:29 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Social media is for cats yes?
A picture of a very soft grey tabby cat lying on a pink duvet with palm leaf detail. The kitty is very snoozy and must not be disturbed!
August 22, 2023 at 12:41 PM
ndkane.bsky.social
Joining the rafts of people excited to read Crip Authorship, edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez which has just arrived! Will open once my body decides to chill out, turns out I am not learning this whole pacing thing very well after all.
A book lays on a black and white abstract blanket. The book cover is of a white gallery space, with white walls and light grey tiled floors. A blue velvet cushioned bench is embellished with big white capitalised letters ‘It was hard to get here. Rest here if you agree.’ The book’s title is Crip Authorship: Disability as Method. Edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez.
August 8, 2023 at 10:48 AM
ndkane.bsky.social
I’m back in Cork and wandered past this pub that has a bunch of great Irish women spray painted outside, happily reading into the lives of Esther Roper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Roper and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Sheehy-Skeffington this morning.
The brown doorway to a pub. On either side are black spray painted silhouettes of women, to the left is Esther Roper, who wears a long coat and spectacles with her hair up, to the right, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington who wears a long coat, a hat and holds an umbrella in her hand.
August 4, 2023 at 7:36 AM
ndkane.bsky.social
In the brand loyalty section of the toy aisle, just getting my brands in early.
A stack of toys on a shelf in a toy store. On the toy is a child’s version of a Flynn lawn mower and a Dyson styling set, in the middle is a kids Joseph Joseph kitchen utensil set, at the bottom is a miniature Dyson cordless bacuuum and Joseph Joseph washing up set.
July 29, 2023 at 12:54 PM