The Design Canberra Festival, now in its ninth year, celebrates Canberra as a global design city.

The DIA is proud to come on board as a silver partner, and we couldn't be happier to support it. The Festival theme is Transformation—inviting audiences to speculate on how they might transform their city, community and world through design and creative practice. 

Jodie Cunningham, CEO and Artistic Director, said: “The Design Canberra Festival contributes to the soul of Canberra and is delivered through extraordinary collaboration between artists, designers, craftspeople, industry, sponsors, educational institutions, organisations and supporters; whose creativity and commitment celebrates Canberra’s world class design and contributes to community wellbeing and identity.”

Design Canberra invited Canberra sculptor Lucy Irvine to be the 2022 designer-in-residence, helping to create the look and feel of the festival aligning with the annual theme of Transformation. Irvine’s work transforms the traditional craft practice of weaving into sculptural installations and for the festival she crafted ‘The Stills’ by revisiting two small sections of weaving, casting them in bronze, and employing repetition and pattern forming to show the iterative process of transformation.

Lucy comments “Our appreciation of transformation can too easily rely upon a definitive before and after. What if transformation could also be an ongoing process without a beginning or an end, existing in a million small interrelations that are, for example, happening long before the materials are in hand and long after the work is on the wall?”

With a program comprising talks, tours, exhibitions, public art installations, workshops and symposiums, Design Canberra highlights include keynotes by authors Elizabeth Farrelly and Tony Fry, as well as by artists Blanche Tilden and Tom Moore.

The DIA's festival picks include:

• Home Life

Curated by Elisabetta Pisu, Home Life is a collaboration with the Embassy of Italy, the Institute of Italian Culture and the Prosecco Consortium. This exciting exhibition of contemporary design reveals how houses will evolve in the future, and shows how objects can enhance our enjoyment of being home.

Thu 27 Oct 2022 — Sat 10 Dec 2022

• Art and Creativity - Within and Beyond Urban Public Spaces

At this symposium, an expert panel will discuss how they have creatively engaged in Ginninderry’s public spaces within and beyond the built environment. Artists, including G.W.Bot will discuss their involvement with major public artworks, and with the Ginninderry Design Library. Redbox Design Group will provide insights into how designers translate historical, environmental, and cultural studies to understand, identify, and communicate a sense of place within Ginninderry’s urban and natural spaces. Sculptor, and public artist Dr. Bronwyn Berman will also be presenting.

Fri 4 Nov 2022

• Medium Density Housing with Tony Fry

The burning questions of the future of humanity need to be considered within areas inhabited by most of the population today: the cities. How and where we live is one of the biggest challenges of the century. This symposium seeks to overcome the dialectics and considers several medium-density developments dating back from the 1970s Canberra, including Michael Dysart’s Urambi Village and Harry Seidler’s Lakeview in Yarralumla, to inspire and discuss more sustainable urban pathways.

Speakers include Tony Fry, Simon Anderson, Jeremy Mather, Jenny Edwards, Adina Cirson, Rahmatollah Amirjani and Dr Milica Muminovic.

Sun 13 Nov 2022

• Waterways Country Symposium

As part of the Design Canberra Festival, Catchment Studio invites you to join us for Waterways Country, a workshop series, a symposium and art installations exploring our relationships with local waterways. If you’re an artist, scientist, conservationist, educator, well-being advocate, cultural producer, water manager, town planner or just someone interested in how we live with water in our city, Waterways Country is a unique opportunity to learn about and contribute to a Ngunnawal-centered, multi-disciplinary understanding of our waterway communities.

Mon 14 Nov 2022 — Wed 16 Nov 2022

• Open Studios: Week Two

Step inside the studios of Canberra’s best designers and makers to purchase contemporary handmade ceramics, furniture, textiles, and glass, directly from the artists. The Open Studios include Alice Van Meurs of fashion label, Edition, with Phoebe Porter Jewellery pop-up, Angela Bakker and Sarah Murphy – Gold and Silvermithing, Bush Baroque – Mixed Media, Curtis Glass Art, Estelle Briedis – Textile/Mixed Media, Hearth Studio – Ceramics, Hopman’s Furniture with Sam Sheppard and Rolf Barfoed – Wood, Tania Vrancic Ceramics and more.

Sat 12 Nov 2022

• Home: Made

Home: Made is an exhibition bringing together a selection of new furniture, homewares, and jewellery by some of the most exciting early career designers and makers from across Australia.

Sat 5 Nov 2022 — Sun 27 Nov 2022

• Canberra Low Carbon Housing Challenge: Tour of Net-Zero/Passivhaus with Michael Tolhurst

Join architect Michael Tolhurst for a tour of his own new home (Narrabundahaus) which has been designed to meet the Passivhaus standard. He will discuss the health and comfort benefits that this type of home provides for its occupants.

Sun 6 Nov 2022

• Creative Kids: Designing Futures

This workshop is designed by artist and educator Dr Naomi Zouwer and is free. A paper installation that will develop over the duration of the Design Canberra Festival it invites children aged 5-12 to be part of the program. How might Canberra’s buildings and spaces look in the future? Users are invited to participate in a centred design process and contribute their ideas using paper folding techniques and more.

Sat 5 Nov 2022 — Sat 19 Nov 2022

The DIA is set to present two events. A timely industry roundtable titled From Silo to Collaboration: Connecting our Designers is organised in partnership with the Alastair Swayn Foundation and the National Museum of Australia. Moderated by Lyndon Anderson, Swayn Senior Fellow of Australian Design at the NMA, the discussion, also available via zoom, starts to ask questions about change, new technologies and whether our peak bodies are equipped to represent the next generation of designers.

Student Crash Course: University to Employment moderated by the DIA's ACT Chair Tom Skeehan, will offer tips and tricks from well-known designer guest speakers for students preparing to enter the next phase of their design journey.

Presenting over 250 events, Design Canberra Festival runs from 2 until 20 November 2022. To view the complete program.