HCM CITY — Việt Nam Festival of Creativity & Design (VFCD) will take place in HCM City from September 21-27 with a renewed and expanded edition built around five tracks that connect creativity, research and community participation.

Featuring a diverse array of nearly 40 events, the festival will be held at the Nina Next Space and a network of creative and dynamic venues across HCM City, alongside selected field-based activities in the Mekong Delta.

The repositioning of the festival in its seventh year reflects the growing ambition of the initiative to become a platform for creative knowledge, talent development and cultural exchange that generates lasting value for education, research, industry and society.

Grounded in local contexts and connected to regional and international perspectives, VFCD aims to bring academic and creative knowledge into active exchange with creative communities and support the development of Việt Nam's broader creative economy.

“A festival is more than a collection of events. It is a living medium through which people gather, exchange ideas and develop a shared sense of place," said Lim Kok Yoong, Festival Director of VFCD 2026 and Deputy Dean, Research and Innovation at RMIT’s School of Communication & Design. 

"Over time, a festival can become part of a city’s identity, a living condition that allows creative communities to meet, form relationships, experiment and grow.

"This is how we see VFCD not simply as something that takes place in the city, but as something that lives through the people, practices and communities that make the city creative.”

After six annual editions between 2019 and 2024, the VFCD is entering a new biennial phase. Under the theme Living Festival, VFCD 2026 reimagines the festival as an active and evolving platform where creativity converges through exhibitions, forum, participatory programs and field-based inquiry.

The festival unfolds through five tracks that together form a dynamic ecology of creative experiences.

The Living Exhibition brings together over 25 projects from more than 75 creative practitioners, to explore creativity as a living condition through works that continue to engage with audiences.

The Festival Futures Forward Forum brings together regional and international festival leaders, including voices from Southeast Asia and Europe, to exchange perspectives on evolving festival models and future directions.

Meanwhile, the collection of satellite events under Living Laboratories activates creative spaces across HCM City through tours, workshops, performances and public programmes.

The Circular Design Week, themed Metabolic Abundance, examines what design can learn from the ecological rhythms of the Mekong Delta.

Finally, the VNx panel discussion explores emerging questions surrounding the future of creative education in Việt Nam.

Together, these tracks create opportunities for encounters, collaboration, exchange and networking among artists, designers, researchers, educators, cultural organisations, creative businesses, students and the public from Việt Nam and across Southeast Asia. — VNS