The VFCD Living Festival positions creativity as an active and evolving system. It emerges through exhibition, dialogue, participation and field-based inquiry, and is sustained through continuous exchange between people, practices and place.
Across four interconnected tracks, the festival unfolds as a dynamic ecology rather than a fixed event. It brings together archival sensibilities, critical conversations, public engagement and territorial exploration to connect local practices with regional and global contexts.
Through encounters, collaborations and shared experiences, the festival becomes a living condition shaped by those who participate in it.
VFCD 2026 unfolds across four interconnected programmes, each engaging creativity through different forms of inquiry, encounter and exchange.
An exhibition exploring the idea of the Living Festival as a form of creativity that lives, breathes, communicates and engages with others. Positioned not as a fixed narrative but as an evolving, responsive entity.
Festival Futures Forward — a series of regional and global dialogues bringing together festival directors from Southeast Asia and Europe to reflect on evolving festival models, shared challenges and future directions. By invitation only.
A participatory platform exploring living industries through direct engagement with the spaces, projects and creative practices shaping Ho Chi Minh City. Operating across a central festival hub and a network of satellite events.
A field-based subconference investigating the Mekong Delta as a living archive of ecological, cultural and economic flows. An immersive, site-responsive ticketed programme.
We invite expressions of interest from artists, designers, researchers, collectives and practitioners for Track 1 (Living Festival Exhibition) and Track 3 (Living Laboratories).
Selected works should engage with creativity as a living, dynamic system: participation, interaction, exchange, and the relationships between people, practices and place.
Submit Your EOIAll submissions must include the following materials. Proposals are reviewed through a double peer-review process by the VN Creative Work Review Panel.
All EOI submissions across Track 1 and Track 3 must include a Research Statement following RMIT's Non-Traditional Research Output (NTRO) format. This is a single-stage submission process: the curatorial decision and NTRO review are conducted together. The statement is a maximum of 250 words and uses three subheadings:
Research Background — context, problem, theoretical framing.
Research Contribution — describe the work and the new knowledge it generates.
Research Significance — why it matters, evidence of excellence, peer recognition.
Submissions will be assessed based on the following criteria:
Note: No funding is available for work creation, transportation, or events. Selected participants are responsible for their own production costs.
VFCD 2026 is presented by RMIT University Vietnam in partnership with the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts Studies (VICAS).
The Creative Works Review Panel comprises practitioners and researchers across architecture, interiors, urban planning, product design, fashion, animation, game design, film studies, digital media, professional communication, fine art and curatorial practice.
Full committee details will be announced shortly.