Explore the
2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival Program
Radical Joy
6 – 18 November 2026 | Q Gallery
Want to ‘give the finger’ to actions (or inaction) that cause you distress? Sick of responding to issues and concerns with anger or sadness? Radical Joy can help you find humour and hope to communicate your concerns.
Raw and Refined
5 – 22 November 2026 | Canberra Airport
Raw and Refined is an exhibition of new work by established contemporary jeweller Phoebe Porter exploring the dualities of raw and worked, natural and cultural, and material and meaning. The project explores refinement both as an artistic act, distilling ideas and forms to their essence, and as a material process in which raw elements are transformed to become workable.
Reflective Clay
14 November 2026 | Ainslie Arts Centre
Slow down with clay. Use a mindful approach to make an unfired 'thought bubble' vessel. Watch it decay in nature over time when you are ready.
RELICS: A New World Rises
19 September 2026 – 31 January 2027 | Canberra Museum and Gallery
RELICS: A New World Rises transforms discarded and obsolete objects into intricate miniature civilisations built from LEGO® bricks. Through creativity, design and storytelling, creators Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler challenge assumptions about waste and value, giving forgotten materials new purpose and inviting audiences to reconsider consumption and obsolescence.
Revitrification
5 – 15 November 2026 | Australian National Botanic Gardens
Revitrification is Matthew Curtis's exploration of salvaged toughened window glass, destined for landfill, remelted and tinted, reformed in response to his visits to the Seedbank at the ANBG.
Robert Foster 10 Year Memorial Exhibition - STILL MAKING
7 – 15 November 2026 | Grainger Gallery
In celebration of a maker whose vision continues to resonate as an enduring act of creative dissent, Robert Foster 10 Year Memorial Exhibition brings together 10 of Robert's most significant original works alongside new collaborative pieces by 10 artists whose practices were deeply shaped by his influence.
Signs of Dissent  | Graphic Interventions 
5 November – 6 December 2026 | Various Locations
Featuring works by Yamile Tafur Rios, Brock Willis and Danish Quapoor, Signs of Dissent | Graphic Interventions transforms public space through site responsive artworks responding to the Festival theme of Dissent. Drawing on cultural identity, environmental narratives and quiet acts of resistance, each artist challenges everyday perspectives and reimagines the visual landscape of Canberra.
Signs of Dissent  | Graphic Interventions TOUR
13 November 2026 | Canberra City
Explore the city through the lens of graphic intervention on this guided walking tour of Signs of Dissent.
Slow Stitched Necklaces: Reimagining Textile Waste
7 November 2026 | CIT Woden
In a world of fast fashion and constant consumption, slow stitching offers an opportunity to pause, make with intention and reconsider what we value.
Slow Stitched Talismans | Acts of Gentle Dissent
12 November 2026 | Craft + Design Canberra | SOLD OUT
In quiet dissent against a world that values speed over stillness, this workshop invites you to explore hand stitching techniques to slowly shape and adorn a talisman made from natural fibres and filled with flowers. Slow stitched talismans honour care, imperfection and the power of handmade objects as vessels of memory and protection.
Small Rituals | hand carved, handheld
5 November – 12 December 2026 | Craft + Design Canberra
Senden Blackwood's hand-carved granite vessels challenge the culture of speed, mass production and disposability. Through painstaking craftsmanship, geometric forms and the enduring presence of stone, his work celebrates slow making, material intelligence and the lasting value of objects shaped by time, patience and the human hand.
Soft Matter
5 November – 12 December 2026 | Craft + Design Canberra
A quiet act of dissent against the conventions that have long diminished craft, Soft Matter presents ceramic sculptures that challenge social and material hierarchies, embracing softness as a site of strength, complexity and possibility across the boundaries of craft, sculpture and still life.
Stories in the Dark
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.
Textile Transformations | Radical Rugs | CANCELLED
9 November 2026 | Craft + Design Canberra CANCELLED
Transform an old t-shirt into a new patch or artwork with a message of protest, resistance or rebellion using traditional rug making techniques.
Tuggeranong Arts Centre Exhibitions
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.
Very Cross Stitch | POSTPONED TO 2027
POSTPONED TO 2027 11 November 2026 | Canberra Contemporary
Join feminist artist and craftivist Dr Tal Fitzpatrick for a ‘Very Cross Stitching’ workshop as part of her solo exhibition Quietly Seething: Fate, Fury and Transmutation at Canberra Contemporary. Participants will be invited to stitch directly into Tal’s exhibition artwork, while sharing and connecting over what makes them cross.
Walk On Country
15 November 2026 | Black Mountain
Walk on Country with Tyronne Bell (Ngunawal ) through the tracks and trails of Black Mountain, gaining a First Nations understanding of bush foods, artefacts and stone tools, with panoramic views of Canberra along the way. This tour reads the landscape through Ngunawal knowledge held and carried forward since long before Canberra was planned, offering the 2026 Festival theme of Dissent as continuity of culture on Country.
Weaving Waters | Mandji the Murray Cod
5 July – 13 December 2026 | Tuggeranong Arts Centre
In dissent against the decline of the Murray Cod, Tuggeranong Arts Centre invites you to join collaborative community weaving sessions, using natural fibre and recycled materials to complete a large scale textile sculpture. Hear First Nations stories and learn about the environmental conservation efforts surrounding this threatened and culturally significant species.
Wing It! A Children’s Atelier for Hatchlings of Change
12 November 2026 | The Learning Nest Co.
Wing It! Is a bold, hands-on children’s atelier where young ‘hatchlings’ explore a range of unexpected materials such as UV paint, odd car parts and splatter tools in a creative mess. This boundary-breaking workshop invites children to experiment freely and challenge expectations through invention, imaginative problem-solving and creative risk taking.
Take A Seat
Saturday 7 November – Sunday 22 November | ANCA Dickson
With Take A Seat, Australian National Capital Artists Incorporated brings together a range of interpretations of the chair from across the spectrum of Canberra’s art, craft and design practices to shed light on our local creative ecology.