Open Call: NADD Archive Day 2026
Craft practices are often grounded in embodied knowledge, slow processes, and forms of transmission that challenge conventional archival frameworks. At the same time, craft histories and traditions raise urgent questions about preservation, authorship, labour, and cultural memory. What does it mean to archive craft? How is craft categorised within design archives? And how might archival practices themselves be understood as forms of making?
12 March 2026
Call for contributions
Within the theme of Crafting the Archive, we will explore how craftsmanship, archiving, remembrance and resistance come together in new practices. This year, NADD is looking for contributions to fill some slots in the programme. Think of talks or presentations, show-and-tell, workshops or participatory sessions, performances or screenings, and roundtable conversations. We’re particularly interested in contributions that activate the archive through practice, foregrounding processes of making, sharing knowledge, and collective reflection.
Archive day
NADD annual Archive Day takes place at Nieuwe Instituut on June 18th, 2026. Following previous editions Living Archives (2024) and (Re)generative Archives (2025), the theme Crafting the Archive shifts the focus to those who make (craft) archives, as well as providing a more specific focus on one genre of design: crafts, or ‘ambacht’.
We invite proposals that reflect on (one of) the following themes:
Craft, Design, and Archival Power
Archives are shaped by systems of classification that determine what is preserved, valued, and made visible. Historical distinctions between “craft” and “design” have often marginalised certain forms of making and excluded particular makers. How could archives be reframed, expanded, or repaired to better account for diverse forms of making and design knowledge?
Reinventing Tradition
Craft traditions evolve through migration, politics, and new technologies. Makers continually update, reinterpret, or challenge historical practices, while experimental and collaborative approaches reshape dominant ideas about tradition, innovation, and the meaning of craft. How are craft traditions updated, reinvented, or contested?
Archiving Craft: Knowledge, Process, and Practice
Craft practices are often embodied, process-based, and relational. Techniques, gestures, and collective practices can be difficult to capture within conventional archival systems. What methods—material, performative, participatory, or digital—can help document and sustain living craft practices?
Craft, Digital Culture, and AI
Digital archives reshape how craft knowledge is translated into data, influencing which traditions are preserved or seen. Makers can also use digital tools and AI critically to reinterpret craft, challenge technological norms, and imagine new, more inclusive archival practices. How are datasets, digitisation practices, and algorithmic systems shaping which craft traditions are preserved, reproduced, or made visible?
Who can apply
We invite proposals from designers, makers, archivists, artists, researchers, cultural workers, educators, collectives, and students working across craft, design, and digital culture.
We strive for an intergenerational conversation and audience and prioritize multivocality in deciding who to invite. Contributions are welcome in English or Dutch as sessions will be held in both languages.
Apply before 8 April 2026, 23:59 CET using the form below.
Practical information
Selected participants will be invited to contribute to the programme of the Crafting the Archive symposium hosted by the NADD. We offer an honorarium and small materials budget. We also cover transport costs within the Netherlands but unfortunately can’t fund international travel. All applications will be assessed by the NADD team, and selection will be communicated by 24th April.