NEST | Design for a Displaced Future
Jan Brown, Matthew Curtis, Megan Munro + Henry Shawcross, Rachel Peachy + Paul Mosig
5 November – 6 December 2026
Location | Civic Square, 180 London Circuit, Canberra ACT 2601
Opening Hours | On view 24/7
Entry | Free | No bookings required
Access | template, template, template
SEE PUBLIC PROGRAM
NEST | Design for the Displaced Future is a major public art commission for the 2026 Craft and Design Canberra Festival, responding to the Festival theme of Dissent. Curated by Craft and Design Canberra, the installation brings together a series of individual sculptural works exploring the universal instinct to nest, connect and belong.
With climate change increasingly reshaping communities, landscapes and habitats across the world, NEST asks how we understand our relationships with place, materials and one another in a changing world. Four artists and collaborative teams have been commissioned to respond to this question, each bringing a distinct material language and conceptual approach.
Jan Brown's Tidal Canopy weaves copper wire into forms inspired by the resilience and structure of limpet shells, gathered together as a suspended canopy that reflects patterns found in the natural world. Megan Munro and Henry Shawcross's The Pod of Belonging constructs a cocoon like form from upcycled textiles, offering a tactile exploration of queer, trans and disabled identity, connection and community. Matthew Curtis's Reuse Refuge transforms salvaged architectural glass into an illuminated structure that reimagines discarded materials as resources for a circular future. Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig's Shielded encloses visitors in a copper mesh Faraday chamber, creating a space for reflection and consideration of the impacts of constant digital connection.
Together, these works create a temporary gathering of distinct artistic voices, revealing how materials can hold stories of place, memory, identity and transformation. Visitors are invited to move between structures, encountering different approaches to making, materiality and belonging, and to consider the ways we might reimagine our connections with the world around us.
Through the language of craft, each work demonstrates how material practices can challenge assumptions, reveal new perspectives and propose alternative ways of engaging with uncertain futures.
NEST will be installed from late October 2026 and remain on public display throughout the Craft and Design Canberra Festival, running 5 to 15 November 2026, before deinstallation in early December.
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Jan Brown is an Australian artist whose practice centres on handwoven sculptures created from copper wire. Drawing inspiration from the environments in which she lives, walks and travels, Brown explores the relationship between material, landscape and form through intricate woven structures that investigate light, texture and transparency.
Originally trained in ceramics at TAFE Southbank Brisbane and Architectural Ceramics at TAFE Eagle Farm, Queensland, Brown developed an established ceramics practice, exhibiting widely and receiving awards since 1990. In 2010, she transitioned from ceramics to metal weaving, embracing a more portable practice that expanded her exploration of sculptural forms and enabled experimentation with lighting, wall works and three dimensional structures.
Brown’s work is held in public and private collections across Australia and internationally, and is represented in galleries in Brisbane, Mount Tamborine, Yamba and Canberra.
SEE ARTIST WEBSITE HERE -
Megan Munro is a Canberra based artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores sculpture, drawing, digital media and the relationship between material, identity and lived experience. Working across aluminium screen wire, woven stainless steel, nylon monofilament and digital forms, Munro creates intricate sculptural works that examine fragility, transformation and the subtle moments of connection found in everyday life.
Munro graduated from the Canberra School of Art in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) with Honours. Since then, her work has been presented in numerous group exhibitions, including The 17th National Craft Acquisition Award at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (1997) and Surfacing at Craft ACT (2000). She was also a finalist in the World of WearableArt Awards, with her work later acquired by the WOW Museum in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Munro's solo exhibitions include Elements (1997), which presented sculptural forms in aluminium screen wire, woven stainless steel and nylon monofilament, and Out of the Shadows (2023), an exhibition of sculpture, video and digital drawing reflecting on her experiences as a queer disabled artist and the moments of possibility, connection and joy found within the everyday.
SEE ARTIST INSTAGRAM HERE -
Henry Shawcross (he/him) is a queer trans disabled artist living and working on Ngunawal and Ngambri Country. Working across textiles, stitching, construction, printmaking and drawing, Shawcross explores gender euphoria, queer joy and disability pride through a practice grounded in material exploration and personal storytelling.
With a lifelong connection to textile traditions, Shawcross returned to visual art as a form of self expression while experiencing chronic illness. Having recently completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the Australian National University, his work examines the relationship between craft, identity and belonging. Drawing on traditional textile techniques learned in childhood, Shawcross challenges the gendered assumptions surrounding contemporary textile practice, using making as a way to celebrate trans, queer and disabled experiences and communities.
SEE ARTIST INSTAGRAM HERE -
Matthew Curtis is a glass artist whose rigorous material based practice explores the shifting qualities, translucency and potential of glass. Introduced to glassblowing through an informal apprenticeship at Denizen Glass in Sydney in the early 1990s, Curtis has developed an experimental approach that extends traditional techniques through unconventional processes, sustained research and material investigation.
Working from his studio in Queanbeyan, NSW, Curtis has increasingly focused on reclaimed architectural glass, reflecting an ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability. His blown and cast works explore transparency, colour and the delicate boundaries between structure and surface. His current practice investigates margins and intersections, drawing attention to the subtle patterns and complexities found within biological structures. For Curtis, these points of connection become metaphors for how materials, objects and ideas can adapt, accommodate and exist in harmony.
Curtis's work is held in significant public and private collections internationally, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Saxe Collection at the de Young Museum (San Francisco), Ernst Stiftung (Germany), the National Gallery of Australia, the Wagga Wagga National Glass Art Collection, Parliament House and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. His large scale illuminated public sculpture Field of Light was commissioned for Canberra. Curtis has undertaken prestigious residencies and received recognition through programs including the Wheaton Arts Creative Glass Fellowship (New Jersey), the Corning Museum of Glass International Artist in Residence (New York), the Canberra Glassworks Fellowship and the Fuse Prize.
SEE ARTIST WEBSITE HERE -
Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig are Canberra-based visual artists and designers whose collaborative practice brings together textiles, audiovisual media, installation and site-based research. Working at the intersection of art, ecology and experimental design, they create immersive installations and time-based works that translate environmental tensions into reflective, sensory experiences.
Grounded in Human Ecology and long-term fieldwork, Peachey & Mosig’s practice employs cross-disciplinary methods that integrate material, technological and somatic processes. Through residencies, organisational partnerships and research-led projects, they have developed work across Australia, Asia and Europe.
Recent projects include a three-channel video performance presented at the Sydney Opera House and Deep Pass, an award-winning underground projection commissioned for the North Sydney Art Prize. Their ongoing research explores ecological grief, ephemerality, material inheritance and the cultural and political systems that shape human–environment relationships. These investigations inform both the conceptual and material development of their work, offering innovative and accessible pathways for audiences to engage with contemporary ecological and cultural complexity.
SEE ARTIST WEBSITE HERE
Images
Matthew Curtis, Increment (detail), 2026 | Photo by Rob Little
Jan Brown, Limpets, 2026 | Photo courtesy of the artist