The Craft ACT Members Exhibitions created with care alongside DESIGN Canberra festival 2020

On paper, they're artworks that don't seem to belong in the same exhibition, but when put together with the other 80-odd pieces in the annual Craft ACT Members Exhibition they do.

Not only do the pieces showcase some of the current trends in contemporary craft and design, they do so while sticking to the theme of Care, coinciding that of the 2020 DESIGN Canberra festival.

"For the last few years we've aligned the members' exhibition with the theme of the DESIGN Canberra festival and it's a great way of making sure that the DESIGN Canberra festival as it grows in visibility and audiences, it still goes back to promoting our core business which is Craft ACT, a 50-year-old membership organisation," Craft ACT chief executive and artistic director Rachael Coghlan says.

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But while the theme of Care was informed by DESIGN Canberra, the exhibition is a great example of its origin.

While some may presume the theme came in response to COVID, Coghlan says the 2020 theme was actually decided on in August last year as a comment on the care that artists take with their craft. The summer's fires and COVID have simply added extra layers to the theme, which could account for the diversity of works in the end result.

"The artists have had such a personal response and yet, I think you can see common themes throughout," Coghlan says.

"It's interesting when all the works arrive, when they were delivered you sort of looked at them and they look so different, it was hard to imagine how we were going to be able to present them beautifully in our gallery.

"And then when you start to see it together, there are themes in materials or colours or line and form and you start to see them coming together.

"I know having heard from the artists, a lot of them are thinking about care for the environment and care for self - looking after yourself in a really difficult year - but also care and respect for the craft that they maintain and celebrating their own practice."

This year Craft ACT received proposals from 75 artists and selected more than 80 works that are shaping the future of craft and design.

But Coghlan says the exhibition is also a reminder about the talent in Canberra.

"We always say, few people know that there are internationally acclaimed artists who could work and make anywhere in the world but they choose living here in Canberra," she says.

"I think it's just really great coming to the artist talks where you can come and meet the artists or at least come in and learn their names and see the beautiful work that's here in our beautiful city.

"I find it really uplifting at the end of a really difficult year just to see such beautiful objects made with such care and attention and that they're nearly all from local artists."

The Craft ACT Members Exhibition runs until December 12. DESIGN Canberra runs from November 9 to 29.