The upcoming edition of the DesignTO Festival is returning to Toronto for its 16th year.
From January 23 to February 1, 2026, the event will unveil over 100 free exhibitions, installations, talks, and workshops across the city. This year’s festival asks the following question: “What does it mean to belong – to each other, to our cities, to our past, to the materials and spaces that surround us, and to the futures we hope to build?”
Through work by hundreds of artists and designers, the festival is set to examine the question of identity through various lenses, including queer domesticity, diasporic memory, ancestral craft, urban advocacy, ecological futures, and the raw creativity of making.
“Identity is not static; it is shaped by the threads we inherit, the stories we hold, the places we call home,” said Anna Bartula, DesignTO’s executive director. “This year’s Festival is a celebration of design that will be defined by the rich and beautiful expressions of belonging. We encourage visitors to stretch their imagination far and wide as they explore how design can help us see each other, and our diverse city, with greater depth, empathy, and appreciation.”
With neighbourhood activations planned in Kensington Market, Roncesvalles, Yonge + St. Clair, Trinity Bellwoods, Stackt Market, 401 Richmond, and along the Waterfront, the festival aims to create global conversations within Toronto’s histories, communities, and ecosystem.
To date, DesignTO has welcomed over one million visitors, reached 2.6 billion people through media, showcased over 7,000 artists and designers, and generated $159 million in tourism spending.
The festival will kick off with the DesignTO Launch Party at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA), a night celebrating art, architecture, design, and global diasporic culture. Guests will be able to experience three floors of Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, with music curated by local·global, featuring DJs Isabel Okoro and Adeola Abegunde.
Highlights of the festival include All Light, an immersive exhibition bringing together 15 Ontario-based artists and light designers, DesignTO Talks: Within the Weave, Kensington Unearthed and (Re)formed, an exhibition of ceramics crafted from wild clay discovered in the heart of Toronto’s Kensington Market, Suspended Vessels, a glowing installation by Bram Locknick that will transform The Drake Hotel’s window into a field of luminous, hand-blown glass and spectral light, and more.
For more information or to view the full schedule, click here.