The V&A South Kensington is preparing to welcome back its flagship celebration of contemporary creative technology, announcing the return of the Digital Design Weekend from 18 to 20 September 2026. Bringing together a diverse array of artists, designers, technologists, and local creative communities, the three-day festival will offer a comprehensive programme of free installations, live performances, collaborative workshops, critical talks, and hands-on experiences for visitors of all ages.
As a vital fixture in the cultural calendar, the festival aims to establish an open and exploratory environment where audiences can directly encounter new and emerging forms of digital art and design. By bridging the gap between practitioners and the public through active conversation, experimentation, and creative participation, the event underscores the evolving role of technology in everyday life and contemporary culture.
At the heart of this year’s festival is the lead project, Once Upon A Garden by Linda Dounia, presented as part of the wider London Design Festival 2026. This evocative display functions as a speculative archive dedicated to critically endangered and extinct flora native to the Sahel region. Through a meticulous artistic lens, the project explores complex themes of memory, cultural and ecological loss, and the unique role that technology plays in imagining and preserving what has seemingly disappeared from the physical world.
This core concept mirrors the broader questions running through the 2026 festival programme, which critically examines how contemporary creative technologies are actively reshaping human perspectives on ecology, care, and community resilience. By interrogating these pressing issues, the festival invites participants to consider what more responsible, sustainable, and resilient digital futures might look like as society navigates an increasingly technologized landscape.
Ecology, Care, and Responsibility
The intersection of technology, ecology, and human empathy forms a central pillar of this year’s exhibitions and installations. In The Soil Sounds Back, artist Emily Stapleton-Jefferis invites museum visitors to physically place their hands into rich soil, allowing them to listen directly to the hidden acoustic echoes of the living ecosystem normally thriving beneath the surface. This immersive experience draws urgent attention to the widespread issues of soil degradation and contemporary ecological loss.
Similarly, Shinji Toya’s Microbial Feral Computing approaches environmental concerns through a distinct solarpunk lens. Toya’s experimental showcase utilizes soil-based bio-batteries and low-energy computers to challenge conventional tech paradigms, encouraging audiences to contemplate alternative, sustainable methodologies for powering future computing infrastructure.
Moving from the ecological sphere to the interpersonal, the theme of care resonates throughout numerous works featured across the weekend. Soothing Sounds by Dr Paulina Yurman investigates the intricate sound strategies instinctively employed by parents, primary caregivers, and infants, highlighting the acoustic bonds of early human nurturing. In contrast, Maria Than’s Please Come Back Tomorrow explores the emotional contours of compassion by examining the frustrating and often alienating experience of navigating complex bureaucratic systems.
Care is also framed through the lens of recognizing and validating human experiences that are historically overlooked or marginalized. In The Baby Factory is Closed, creator Deepa Mann-Kler employs multisensory virtual reality technology to break long-standing cultural silences, opening up vital public conversations about menopause, how it is physically and emotionally experienced, and how society understands it.
These urgent dialogues surrounding care and accountability extend naturally into the realm of artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems. Nathan David Smith’s Large Language Machine lifts the veil on the complex hidden structures that shape modern chatbot responses, prompting viewers to question the underlying mechanics of machine communication. Furthermore, the Lumen Prize conversation titled The Age of Responsibility: Rethinking Digital Futures challenges contemporary artists to approach creative technology with heightened care, stewardship, and ethical accountability.
Connecting Creative Communities
Beyond its public-facing exhibitions, the Digital Design Weekend serves as a vital networking and support hub designed to connect disparate segments of the thriving creative technology sector.
The Creative Technology Social: Voices from the London community gathers a diverse coalition of artists, independent producers, and grassroots organizers from across London’s vibrant creative technology scene. Together, these practitioners will engage in critical discussions regarding the specific physical spaces and community networks that sustain their artistic practices, the systemic challenges they currently face, and the ways in which enhanced exchange and collaboration can foster a more accessible, equitable, and sustainable sector for the future.
In tandem with these industry discussions, the festival provides a crucial public platform for the next generation of creative practitioners. Emerging talents are given the opportunity to showcase their ambitious works to a wider audience through specialized presentations by students from the Computational Arts programme at Goldsmiths, University of London, alongside the MA Information Experience Design programme from the Royal College of Art.
From Audiences to Participants
Active participation remains a defining hallmark of the Digital Design Weekend, ensuring that visitors are never passive observers. The festival curates a dynamic space where the public can actively make, play, and experiment with cutting-edge and alternative technologies, while simultaneously reflecting on the profound ways these tools shape society and everyday life.
Throughout the three-day event, visitors will have the opportunity to make algorithmic music alongside Nadezhda Khalid, create real-time live visuals with Mike Cook, build an innovative fabric synthesizer with Lia Mice, or learn the intricate process of constructing a compost-powered bio-battery directly from Shinji Toya. Additionally, audiences can participate in Arcade Social, a curated showcase of collaborative games designed to bring strangers and friends together through shared play and conversation.
Emphasizing bodily engagement and graphic expression, Jane Lee’s Glyph Yourself! invites visitors to use their own bodies to invent entirely new typographic forms. These newly created characters are subsequently archived and printed on-site as part of a collective zine. Meanwhile, the Computer Arts Society and Genetic Moo offer hands-on opportunities for attendees to try their hand at computer art generation, drawing direct inspiration from the historical techniques and early experimental milestones of the computer arts field.
These interactive offerings represent only a fraction of the experiences available throughout the weekend. Seamlessly moving between digital coding and acoustic music, physical electronics and soft textiles, human movement and graphic design, these diverse activities provide multiple entry points into the world of creative technology, encouraging every visitor to explore their own unique creative potential.
The Digital Design Weekend will take place at V&A South Kensington from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September 2026. All festival activities are entirely free to attend, and no advance booking or tickets are required unless specifically noted for particular events.