100 Cleft Portraits Tour
About this Event
About the Tour
The 100 Cleft Portraits Tour is a powerful traveling art exhibition featuring 100 portraits of individuals affected by cleft lip and/or palate, each accompanied by a deeply personal story. Created by UK-based artist, advocate, and trauma-informed coach Katie Manning, the exhibition celebrates the strength, identity, and lived experiences of the cleft community — honoring people not as medical patients, but as whole, beautiful, complex human beings.
Following its moving world debut in London in July 2025, the exhibition is coming to the United States in summer 2026, visiting 12 cities nationwide from July through August. Katie Manning will be present at every stop, leading classes and workshops for attendees.
Join us on August 21, 2026 for the 100 Cleft Portraits Tour at the Pyle Center at UW Madison. Your FREE ticket includes:
- Viewing access to all 100 portraits
- Meet-and-greet with Katie Manning
- Special trauma-informed parenting workshop led by the artist
- Opportunities to make your own self-portraits with the artist
This event is free, but please let us know if you are coming.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Learn more about the Tour here:
https://acpacares.org/100-cleft-portraits-tour/
Why It Matters
✅ Visibility & Representation
Positive, beautiful portraits that help people see themselves as whole humans — not a "before/after."
✅ Education & Awareness for the cleft community and the wider world, because you never truly know another person's journey by looking at them.
✅ Connection & Nervous System Truth
Cleft and the experiences attached to it can create trauma responses in the body. Naming that with care reduces isolation and helps those who are struggling to feel seen.
Who It’s For
This tour exists for everyone who was born with cleft, and every parent and family raising a child born with cleft. It is also a meaningful experience for healthcare providers, care teams, and anyone whose life has been touched by cleft. It is a valuable contribution to the wider community through its education about how cleft impacts the lived experience of those born with one and those who love them, challenging the narrative that cleft is a superficial condition.
About the artist:
Katie Manning is an artist, trauma-informed coach, mother to a daughter born with bilateral cleft, and married to a man born with unilateral cleft. Cleft is not just something she works with; it’s woven into her family.
Their journey – from diagnosis in Singapore, through surgeries, mental and physical health struggles, and her own deep dive into trauma and the nervous system – is what led her here.
Through her work, she:
- Helps parents understand what happens in their bodies when they receive a cleft diagnosis and navigate the parenting path of raising a child with a cleft
- Supports families to regulate their nervous systems and reconnect with their children and themselves
- Uses art to restore reverence for faces that have too often been medicalised, judged, or misunderstood
Agenda
🕑: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Trauma-Informed Parenting Workshop
Host: Katie Manning
Info: Free workshop for parents, caregivers, or people born with cleft exploring cleft, trauma, and the nervous system. Space is limited - purchase a free ticket for this event.
🕑: 12:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Public Portrait Viewing
Info: View all 100 portraits. Meet and greet with the Artist. Create your own self-portrait. Free Admission - but we'd love to hear if you are coming!
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
