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Made by Hand 

September 10, 2026

Made by Hand 

At Homo Faber 2026, craftsmanship is something to see, touch and experience

Photo ©Homo Faber - homofaber.com

Follow the light.

Across the gardens and historic rooms of Venice’s Fondazione Giorgio Cini, it catches on glass and gemstones, moves across water and mirrors, illuminates textiles and ceramics, and falls on the hands of the people who made them. 

This is Homo Faber 2026, but don’t expect to spend your visit simply looking at beautiful things behind glass. Throughout September, the international celebration of contemporary craftsmanship turns the island of San Giorgio Maggiore into a place of making. You can watch artisans at work, talk to them about what they do and, occasionally, pull up a chair and have a go yourself. 

For ISSIMO, that idea feels particularly close to home. To us, Italian craftsmanship has always been about more than the finished object: it is the skill behind it, the knowledge of a material, the tiny decisions that make one piece different from another. 

Photo ©Homo Faber - homofaber.com

This year’s edition is called An Island of Light, and British artist and designer Es Devlin has taken the title quite literally. Across 15 immersive installations, she uses water, mirrors and movement to play with the relationship between light and material, creating a route through hundreds of objects made by more than 500 artisans from over 70 countries. 

But get closer, and the scale of the exhibition gives way to the details. Familiar materials appear in unexpected forms; some objects reveal themselves immediately, while others make you stop, circle back and wonder how on earth they were made. Each carries traces of the person who made it, whether in a shaped surface or an intricate stitch.  

Many of those makers are here in person, which is where Homo Faber really comes alive. Live demonstrations reveal processes that would usually remain hidden, while workshops invite visitors to try specialist techniques themselves. The programme changes throughout the month, so no two visits look quite the same. 

Chiostro Palladiano ©Matteo De Fina - cini.it

And then there is Venice itself. On San Giorgio Maggiore, just across the water from the city, the rooms and gardens of Fondazione Giorgio Cini become part exhibition, part working space. Devlin has taken inspiration from the lagoon, imagining each artisan as an island of individual knowledge connected to a much wider creative world. 

The experience continues across Venice with Homo Faber in Città, opening the doors to ateliers, galleries and other spaces where craftsmanship is part of everyday life. 

Perhaps that’s what stays with you after Homo Faber. You arrive for the objects, but leave thinking about their makers, and everything that happened before the finished piece came into view. 

Homo Faber 2026: An Island of Light runs at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, from 1 to 30 September 2026. 

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