7 + 8 November 2026 | Various Locations

Step inside the studios of Canberra’s makers and discover the creative practices of local craftspeople, designers, artists and arts organisations. Proudly supported by home.by.holly.  

13 - 15 November 2026 | Ainslie Arts Centre

The Undercurrent Design Market brings together over 50 accomplished makers from across Australia, showcasing contemporary work in jewellery, glass, ceramics, textiles and diverse creative mediums.  

11 November 2026 | Pearce Community Centre

Artmaking for YOU offers an inclusive, therapeutic artmaking workshop that explores creativity as an act of dissent.  

23 October – 15 November 2026 | M16 Artspace

Bespoke Utopia presents Canberra artists whose practices embrace the principles of slow design that is grounded in care, material knowledge and long-term thinking. Linking global conversations around sustainable design with Canberra’s rich craft history, the exhibition invites audiences to consider how design shapes everyday life and how thoughtful creative practices can challenge fast, disposable production models.  

7 November 2026 | National Carillon

Canberra Kinetic Sculpture Race is a one-day spectacle of human-powered, amphibious art machines. Teams create imaginative sculptures that travel across land, sand, and water in a whimsical celebration of creativity and dissent. Audiences can explore, watch, and cheer on these inventive, handmade moving artworks. 

6 November 2026 | National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

Dissent by Design explores creativity as a form of dissent: the ways artists, designers, activists and storytellers use their practice to resist, imagine and rebuild.  

14 November 2026 | ANU School of Medicine and Psychology

How do we view, hear and learn from the human corpse? Artists and anatomists from the Australian National University School of Medicine come together to explore how art and narrative can protect and preserve the humanity of the human body.  

6 November 2026 | Canberra Contemporary

Join Canberra Contemporary for the opening of Quietly Seething: Fate, Fury and Transmutation, a major new solo exhibition by feminist artist and craftivist Dr Tal Fitzpatrick. This exhibition makes space for a conversation about the power and pain of feminine rage using the gentle and familiar textures of cloth.  

5 November – 6 December 2026 | Civic Square  

NEST | Design for the Displaced Future is a major public art commission for the 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival, responding to the theme of Dissent. Located in Civic Square, the temporary public art installation brings together sculptural works exploring the universal instinct to nest and belong in a changing world. 

12 November 2026 | Civic Square  

Explore NEST | Design for the Displaced Future, featuring site-responsive installations that reflect on gathering, belonging and place. 

14 November 2026 | Q Gallery

Create a hand-felted protest finger puppet with artist Lynn Petersen in this workshop inspired by her exhibition Radical Joy.  

5 –  15 November 2026 | Civic Square

Stories in the Dark is an animated public light installation in Civic Square by Eggpicnic. Shifting between daylight and nighttime hours we see and hear species and ecosystems that have been ignored or erased, challenging us to confront ecological neglects. Transforming our attention into responsibility and making dissent a deliberate act of ecological care.  

23 October –  12 December 2026 | Tuggeranong Arts Centre

Dissenting the trend of mass manufactured consumer goods, Tuggeranong Arts Centre presents outstanding craft and design in three exhibitions that privilege slow craft to refute disposable consumerism in favour of intergenerational investment in quality crafted and designed objects.