Heritage Hands Festival is coming to Sandgate in November 2026, bringing together artisans, makers, traditional trades, local stories and the wider community for a celebration of the skills and knowledge that connect our past with our future.
Building on the Heritage Hands photographic and storytelling project, the festival takes the project beyond exhibition walls and creates opportunities to meet the makers, experience skills firsthand, share knowledge and inspire the next generation.
Heritage Hands began by documenting artisans and traditional skills through photography, interviews and storytelling.
The Sandgate festival is the next evolution: bringing those stories to life through participation.
Across the festival, audiences will be able to discover traditional and contemporary craftsmanship, hear directly from people practising specialist skills, participate in workshops and demonstrations, explore local heritage and consider how these skills can continue into the future.
The program is being developed to include:
Sandgate is where Heritage Hands began.
With its strong sense of place, historic town centre, creative community and enduring connection to local trades, businesses and community life, Sandgate provides a natural home for the inaugural festival.
The festival will activate spaces across the town and invite people to experience Sandgate differently — through its people, stories, skills, buildings and landscape.
It is intended not simply as an event in Sandgate, but as a festival of Sandgate, developed with local businesses, organisations, artisans and community partners.
A central purpose of Heritage Hands is not only to celebrate skills, but to help ensure they have a future.
Education, succession and intergenerational knowledge-sharing will sit at the heart of the festival.
Dedicated schools and youth programming will introduce young people to artisans, makers and creative practitioners, providing opportunities to experience hands-on skills and discover pathways they may never have considered.
By bringing established practitioners together with emerging makers and young people, Heritage Hands aims to create conversations around craftsmanship, creativity, entrepreneurship, vocational pathways and the value of learning by doing.
Heritage Hands Festival is being built collaboratively, and we are currently inviting businesses, organisations, institutions and community partners to help bring the inaugural festival to life.
Opportunities exist to support festival programming, education and youth engagement, artisan participation, accessibility, exhibitions, documentation and community experiences.
Partners can contribute through financial investment, in-kind support, expertise, venues, promotion, programming or collaboration.
Interested in partnering with Heritage Hands?
Download the Heritage Hands Investment & Partnership Prospectus to discover the broader vision for Heritage Hands and opportunities to support its development.
