Melbourne Design Week at the Convent 2026.

100 CHAIRS features the work of over 100 Australian creatives, studios, artists, architects and practices exploring the chair as a medium. The exhibition provides a platform for creatives at all career levels to present work collectively. All chairs have been designed and made in Australia.

Exhibition: 14 — 24 May
Public Talk: 23 May, 11am
South Magdalen Laundry

Through Synthesis by Studio Shields, heritage architecture becomes the framework for a contemporary interior installation, where encaustic tiles, stained glass and time-worn timber remain untouched, allowing the building’s existing character to anchor the space.

Within this setting, a collective of Australian designers and artists present contemporary collectible works arranged as layered domestic vignettes rather than isolated objects.

14 — 22 May
Bishop’s Parlour

The Latin word arum serves as the inspiration for Tom Fereday’s exhibition title, referencing the origins and transformation of raw material through the process of sand casting.

Fascinated by the tension between natural materials and contemporary design and manufacture, Tom Fereday develops unique designs through an inquiry into the role of objects today.

14 — 17 May
Oratory

18 — 24 May
Mural Hall

Industry is an exhibition about legitimate sustainability with the aim of creating a circular economy model within a small designer–maker studio. The result is a series of speculative works — furniture, lighting, homewares, textiles and sculpture.

14 — 16 May
North Magdalen Laundry

This exhibition pays homage to the iconic work of three female design luminaries — Simone LeAmon, Helen Kontouris and Laura McCusker.
Ash Allen has recreated, in steel weldmesh, a piece from each of their portfolios and presents the narrative behind each work.

14 — 24 May
St Heliers Street Gallery

LOST HiDE explores design as a cultural force shaping how we live and imagine the future. Drawing on international experience, including past Milan curations, the exhibition champions Australian designers through a conceptually driven and material-led practice.

14 — 24 May
The Store

This installation presents a living room setting where sheepskin takes centre stage. From shaggy floor-to-ceiling layers to soft shortwool couches, and perhaps even a sheepskin-covered lamp, visitors are invited to experience the warmth, texture and versatility of this natural material.

The installation brings together Wilson & Dorset designs, existing pieces and original creations from a handpicked group of Australian designers, inviting visitors to wander, touch and connect to a more primal way of living.

14 — 24 May
Salon

As an ongoing study in fabric, Toile unfolds as a series of sculptural lighting works conceived as final drafts – pieces caught mid-process, where traditional shade-making is reworked to reveal its construction, seams and all. Human in scale, they lean and cluster with a quiet humour, as if sharing a secret.

14 — 16 May
Industrial School

Illustrator Samantha Curcio and furniture designer Katrina Ramm (Ka Ra Studio) come together in a collaborative exploration of the space between art and design.

The exhibition presents new work that brings Curcio’s expressive digital illustrations into dialogue with Ramm’s character-filled timber forms, resulting in pieces that are both sculptural and functional.

13 — 16 May
Mezzanine

Domestic Revery is an exhibition of new work by ceramicist and artist Laura Veleff and her craftsman father, Alex Veleff, exploring the impact of living with and using handmade objects and furniture in domestic spaces and how this can affect a person’s connection to materials.

14 — 24 May
Salon

All Heaven Broke Loose convenes objects that operate through gentleness, attending to form, material and bodily address as sites of meaning. Set against an increasingly hardened visual and material culture, the exhibition advances an alternative set of values grounded in sensitivity, permeability and welcome.

14 — 16 May
Packing Room

Clothes for Chairs is a group exhibition inviting fashion, textile, and design practitioners to reimagine discarded garments as functional seating.

Each participant is provided with a reclaimed chair frame and asked to approach it as they would a body — measuring, draping, weaving, knitting, reconstructing, or mending to create a new textile outcome.

21 — 24 May
Industrial School

How might discarded clothing be used to restore function and value to an otherwise unusable object?

Working with reclaimed chair frames and post-consumer clothing, participants in this one-day design workshop led by Future Archive will experiment with sewing, hand stitching, weaving, knotting, and upholstery techniques — applying garment-based thinking to functional object design.

Saturday 16 May
Linen Room

PAGEANT: A Retrospective (2010-2025) is a reflective exhibition featuring installation-based fashion, design, visual art and film, exploring future fashion directions.

Exhibition: 20 — 24 May
Public Program Talk: 23 May
Exhibition Celebration: 23 May

Industrial School

Cyclic is a group exhibition proposed by a collective of craft practitioners from Craft Victoria’s Fresh! Fellowship 2025 cohort. Working across woodworking, metalsmithing, textiles, bio-materials, lighting and ceramics, each maker contributes a distinct yet interconnected voice within the evolving language of contemporary craft.

21 — 24 May
Oratory

Ink & Spindle opens its spacious, light-filled studio, offering an immersive experience of colour, texture and print. Within heritage-listed walls, the team screenprint Australian landscape-inspired designs on their large thirteen metre print table.

Guests are invited to observe a live printing demonstration, guided through the detailed process of large-format screenprinting. The session also explores the intersection of small-scale manufacturing, sustainable production values and environmentally conscious interior design.

16, 23 and 24 May
Ink & Spindle

HERE is a two hour symposium presented as part of Melbourne Design Week 2026. The program brings together diverse design practitioners from Victoria and beyond, featuring short project-led presentations and open conversations exploring how place shapes visual form, process and authorship.

Sunday 24 May
North Magdalen Laundry

Celebrating Melbourne Design Week, join us for a walking tour visiting a selection of highlights from the program at Abbotsford Convent, hosted by design editor and journalist, Alice Blackwood.

15 — 16 May
Precinct-wide

Presented by UnitePlayPerform, and conceptualised, designed, and produced by Melissa Gilbert, the Reclaim and Transform Initiative marks the first three steps in an ongoing journey toward the Symbiocene – a paradigm where design shifts from extraction toward interdependence, reciprocity, and living systems.

14 — 24 May
Convent Courtyard

Step into this workshop for an immersive exploration of the language of knit and its intersection with contemporary First Nations designs. As part of Melbourne Design Week 2026, UnitePlayPerform and KNOVUS present a deep dive into how digital precision translates cultural narrative and artistic vision into tactile, three-dimensional form.

Thursday 21 May
Magdalen Laundry

The UPP Concept Store functions as a material storytelling hub: a space where audiences can encounter how design, collaboration, and cultural practice can transform overlooked materials into collectable, wearable, and functional outcomes.

14 — 24 May
Convent Courtyard

Join First Nations artist, founder, and educator Melissa Gilbert of UnitePlayPerform for a deeply personal, practice-led conversation exploring how values, ethics, principles, and material decisions can reshape the way we make, collaborate, and build across art, design, architecture, and public space.

At its core, this session reimagines waste not as an endpoint, but as a valuable material resource, an invitation for systemic change, and a catalyst for cultural shift.

Saturday 16 May
Convent Courtyard

UnitePlayPerform Playshops are where information goes to get messy before it gets wise.

Play as Prototype is a 90-minute immersive Playshop facilitated by Melissa Gilbert for designers, artists, architects, and cultural leaders ready to test ideas in real time. Using reclaimed materials from UPP’s Reclaim and Transform Initiative, participants move through rapid cycles of building, breaking, and re-making, guided by the UnitePlayPerform methodology: Disarm → Disrupt → Unite → Play → Perform → Transform.

22 — 23 May
North Magdalen Laundry

UnitePlayPerform Playshops are where information goes to get messy before it gets wise.

Play as Prototype is a 90-minute immersive Playshop facilitated by Melissa Gilbert for designers, artists, architects, and cultural leaders ready to test ideas in real time. Using reclaimed materials from UPP’s Reclaim and Transform Initiative, participants move through rapid cycles of building, breaking, and re-making, guided by the UnitePlayPerform methodology: Disarm → Disrupt → Unite → Play → Perform → Transform.

22 — 23 May
North Magdalen Laundry