As the buzz of excitement increases in volume at Craft + Design Canberra in the lead-up to its 10th Craft + Design Canberra Festival, there’s an even louder sound emitting from its headquarters – exultation. 

For the return of ACT Labor to government means the probable realisation of a long-held dream to have Canberra listed as a UNESCO Creative City of Design, the very raison d’etre of the festival. 

Australia currently has seven designated cities and according to CEO and artistic director Jodie Cunningham. The government had already made a $3.3 million commitment to achieve the listing, as UNESCO requires a government-led push. 

“This would brand the city as a cultural city of design,” Cunningham says, adding that in her view Canberra would more than qualify, having more artists living and working here than in any other Australian city and a cultural heritage in the Griffin design and in its Ngambri and Ngunnawal ancestry.

With 20 sponsors and 500 artists and designers involved, she says, the festival will feature symposiums, workshops with intriguing titles such as Mindful Clay, open studios featuring 27 artists and six galleries, architectural tours presented with the Australian Institute of Architects and Canberra Modern, and even a talk on bonsai.

A highlight, Cunningham says, will be on the first Saturday in Civic Square where there’ll be activities for kids, alongside the Festival Design Markets filled with handmade goods.

Also in Civic Square will be Urban Biome, an example of upcycling. It’s a modular-art installation of planter boxes made from offcuts and deck tiles formed into a kind of mosaic installation, created by Thor Diesendorf, from Thor’s Hammer, glass artist Spike Deane, from the Canberra Glassworks, and horticulturist David Taylor, from Ephemeral Country, with support from City Renewal Authority and Yarralumla Nursery, who have supplied endangered locally endemic species to fill the planter boxes. The public can buy them.

“We’re super-excited,” Cunningham says. “We’ve just been bringing in Minka Gillian’s Mind Garden, part of our Speculative Materialism exhibition which is at the centre of the festival.

“Minka ’s objects are made of recycled material and it’s so colourful and enjoyable, and it fits with the 2024 festival theme, Regenerate, which looks at how we can use materials in different ways to help the environment.”

Thinking well outside the Square, but related to Speculative Materialism, a group of five artists, including ANU scholar Beth Sullivan, have installed ceramic sculptures in coral tanks at the National Zoo and Aquarium. The objects weren’t glazed because corals won’t attach to them, and in preparation for the festival, they’ve been happily attaching and regenerating for some months now. 

Over at the embassy of Finland is Second Chance, an exhibition by Finnish Artist Siru Tuomisto of assemblage sculptures in which everyday objects have been regenerated into new forms in new, unexpected and clever ways. There’ll be a workshop at the embassy where people can learn how to upcycle glass at home.

“It’s all a joyful celebration of upcycling,” Cunningham says.

2024 Craft + Design Canberra Festival, November 1-10.