2026 CRAFT + DESIGN CANBERRA CITY OF DESIGN GRANT RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED | Festival to Highlight Canberra as a Global City of Design

While the City of Design Major Projects fund is now closed, Smaller Projects funding remains open until 1 April 2027, or until allocated funds are exhausted.

Now a signature event on the Canberra calendar, the Craft + Design Canberra Festival attracts more than 140,000 attendees and delivers significant economic and cultural benefits for the Territory.

‘Through the City of Design Projects Fund, administered by artsACT, the ACT Government has commissioned ambitious new work from local artists and designers that will be presented during the 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival. This is the kind of investment that lets our creative sector take risks, reach new audiences and contribute to Canberra’s standing as a global city of design.’ said Jodie Cunningham, CEO + Artistic Director, Craft + Design Canberra.

The funding expands opportunities for local artists, designers and creative businesses to develop and present ambitious work and supports Canberra’s progress toward recognition in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. 

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL | Dissent

The 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival celebrates Canberra as a creative capital and a global city of design, connecting the community with makers, designers and innovators. The Festival highlights the city’s rich design heritage, from the cultural practices of First Nations peoples and the Griffins’ visionary city plan to iconic modernist architecture and a thriving contemporary craft and design scene. 

Under the theme ‘Dissent’, the 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival treats craft, design, architecture and urban planning as tools for social change and community engagement. It uses art and spatial design to question power structures, amplifies marginalised and underrepresented voices through inclusive projects, and considers how shared community spaces can support wellbeing and healing.

‘Making by hand is in itself a quiet form of dissent. It asks us to slow down, to question how an object is made and who it is made for, and to consider that it could be made differently. To shape something by hand is to refuse the assumption that everything must be fast, uniform and disposable. Handmade and locally made objects carry a different kind of value: more sustainable, more connected to place, and more deliberate in how they meet the problems of our time,’ said Jodie Cunningham, CEO and Artistic Director, Craft + Design Canberra.

The program also looks at craft and architecture being redefined through a blend of tradition and new materials and techniques, and at the role of digital tools, smart systems and sustainable materials in shaping future practice. Interdisciplinary and participatory approaches run throughout, with artists, makers, architects, performers and urban designers working across boundaries, alongside satirical and subversive work that uses humour to critique convention, and speculative projects that imagine future societies and cityscapes.

‘Design thinking is dissent made practical. It begins by questioning the way things have always been done, then asks how they might be done better, for more people, with less waste and greater care. It applies creativity and rigour to the problems that matter most: how we house ourselves, how we care for one another, and how we build a better future. Across a festival, and across a city, those small enquiries, considerations, protests and refusals add up to a different way of imagining how we live and work together,’ said Jodie Cunningham, CEO +Artistic Director, Craft + Design Canberra

The full 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival program will be launched, and tickets will go on sale, on 20 August 2026. To stay up to date, visit the 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Website.