IF Craft ACT has anything to do with it, the nation’s capital is about to undergo an alchemical transformation with the advent of the 2022 Design Canberra Festival.

Running until November 20, it neatly dovetails with the Canberra Art Biennial, which we covered some weeks ago, and it signals the ambition to have Canberra known as a global city of design.

CEO and artistic director of Craft ACT Jodie Cunningham, herself a noted designer, says the festival, which is the primary outreach event for the 51-year-old craft organisation, will feature more than 359 events, including talks, art and architectural tours, public art activations and children’s workshops, all designed to transform the CBD, Braddon and Dickson.

There will be international collaborations with Italy, NZ, Uruguay and Finland and an astonishing exhibition of light work, “Aurora” by Wellington artist Tyler Jackson, that will transform Commonwealth Place until November 27.

“The concept is alchemy, which originally transformed lead into beautiful objects and there’ll be lots of gold around,” Cunningham says, pointing to the golden-tiled pillars outside the North Building in Civic Square.

“How can we and should we transform our world through design?” she asks, pointing out that the idea is inspired by the symbolism of gold, which also links nicely to Craft ACT’s covid-thwarted golden anniversary last year.

With that in mind, a golden-bronze signature work, “The Stills”, has been commissioned from 2022 designer-in-residence, Lucy Irvine.

A panel discussion “transforming Canberra” at the Shine Dome on November 5 will see architectural author Elizabeth Farrelly in discussion with urban movers and shakers such as Malcolm Snow, from the City Renewal Authority, and Jonathan Efkarpides, from the Molonglo Group. 

Activities are already beginning on Civic Square, where the Second Space gallery outside the CMAG has been transformed into a festival hub shop full of goodies including a limited-edition range of “General Assembly” brooches created by contemporary jewellers Blanche Tilden and Phoebe Porter.

There’ll be exhibitions in the Canberra Theatre, a symposium at the CMAG, laneway activations, jazz every Friday night and a public celebration with music, street food and live music in Civic Square from 2pm-7pm on November 5.

Looking for a practical example of transformation, I hear that Cunningham would be taking Design Canberra visitors there, I dash across to the studios that Harriet Schwarzrock shares in Queanbeyan with Matt Curtis, to get a preview of the “hot work” she’s doing as she prepares the glass canes that will be transformed into a neon-glass artwork that “breathes” like the heart.

“It’s my neon and plasma work that has the most scope for transformation,” Schwarzrock says, as she explains the transformation of gas into the “fourth state of matter”, plasma. 

Neon works illuminate when they come into the electro-magnetic field, which transforms them into plasma.

It’s named after plasma in the blood, “a lovely link I think because I’m interested in circulation,” she says, referring to her famous glass/neon “responsive” sculptures.

2022 Design Canberra Festival, November 5-20. Curtis Glass Art, Queanbeyan, will be open to the public, 10am to 4pm on November 12.