Festival Highlights
Melbourne Design Week returns from 14-24 May with a city-wide program of forward-thinking exhibitions, fascinating talks and exciting installations, proving why Melbourne remains Australia’s design capital.
Held over 11 days, Melbourne Design Week’s substantial and varied 2026 program features more than 400 events – with talks, tours, dinners, exhibitions, launches and workshops taking place at venues across the city and regional Victoria. With 1,300 participating creatives, it is the Asia Pacific’s largest and most influential design festival.
The festival focuses on design as a force for good, with ‘Design the world you want’ its overarching call to action. It urges participants to consider how to design the world we want to live in today, as well as the legacy we leave for future generations. Themes of living legacy, Australian-made, luminaries, design futures and circularity turn the focus to sustainability, local makers and future-forward thinking.
Materiality takes centre stage at ‘LOST HiDE’, a group exhibition curated by Emma Elizabeth and presented by Local Design at The Store, Abbotsford Convent. Here, leather takes on a different identity as 14 Australian designers – including J.AR Office, Adam Goodrum and Tom Fereday – take the material into new territory, exploring sustainability, memory and craftsmanship through furniture, objects and experimental forms.
‘Transformative Repair’ explores what happens when broken objects are treated as an opportunity rather than waste.
‘Transformative Repair’ explores what happens when broken objects are treated as an opportunity rather than waste. Hosted at Useful Objects in Collingwood, the exhibition marks the culmination of a six-year research project led by Dr Guy Keulemans and Dr Trent Jansen, exploring repair as a new model for sustainability. Participants include Danielle Brustman, Edward Linacre, Marlo Lyda and Lucy McRae, with a related discussion and book launch taking place at BAR Cantina on 16 May.
Fashion meets circular design in ‘RE:BORN’, an exhibition presented by cult fashion house Romance Was Born and Cultivated at Artbank Melbourne in Collingwood. Known for its theatrical, playful aesthetic, Romance Was Born has transformed discarded furniture into exuberant collectible pieces that blur the line between fashion, art and interiors. Working alongside local makers and manufacturers – and supported by Artbank, studio x us, Cult Design and TSAR Carpets – the project celebrates restoration and reinvention with joyful maximalism.
Renowned New Zealand lighting designer David Trubridge brings a large-scale installation, new product launches and big-picture thinking to Mondoluce in South Yarra. At the centre is Bilang, a monumental woven installation created with public art practice Murrup Biik’s Chris Joy and Wurundjeri Woiwurrung artist Kim Wandin, inspired by Country and traditional string bags. Visitors can watch the installation take shape live across the festival’s opening days, alongside presentations of Trubridge’s latest lighting designs, including the manta ray-inspired Manta pendant and portable lamp Dusk. The program culminates in ‘Think Like a Tree’, an evening talk on 21 May exploring design, sustainability and learning from nature.
‘Clubhouse’, a group exhibition presented by Found Golf at fashion boutique UP THERE in Flinders Lane, brings together designers, athletes and artists working with sporting materials and iconography to explore how sport shapes identity, nostalgia and community. Contributors include designer Locki Humphrey, Safa El Samad, founder of flash embroidery business Soof, and AFL player Cody Weightman.
Running from 15-17 May at the NGV Great Hall and Federation Court, the Melbourne Art Book Fair once again gathers some of the most exciting voices in contemporary arts and publishing. The Stallholder Fair is at the heart of the event, bringing together independent publishers, artists, designers and collectives working across zines, artist books, photobooks and experimental print formats.
Typography is a central aspect of the fair this year. The three-channel video installation ORIENT & RE-ORIENT by Xinyuan (Caesar) Li examines ‘chop suey’-style lettering – visual tropes historically used to imitate Chinese culture – and unpacks how typography shapes cultural perception and identity. Join Li for a discussion of his work on 16 May. Meanwhile, Posted Up draws from the archive of the International Poster Biennale Mexico. Curated by N0 R3PLY founders Azul Bermudez and Sen Vanderzalm, the show spans decades of iconic international poster design and is a reminder of the enduring power of type in public spaces.
Melbourne Design Week, 14-24 May, across Melbourne and regional Victoria; Melbourne Art Book Fair, 14-24 May across Victoria, including the Stallholder Fair, 15-17 May, National Gallery of Victoria.
