The Venice Glass Week 2026 is about to begin and, for its tenth consecutive edition beginning on September 12, the city of Venice and its surroundings will once again open their doors to this international week-long festival entirely dedicated to glass. Launched in 2017, the event started small, envisioned as a way to celebrate and value the material that has shaped the city's history and identity—and rooted in centuries of glassmaking tradition. Ten years later, the festival has grown far beyond its original vision and is making a bid for greater international prominence.
The Venice Glass Week has today become "necessary to the world of glass globally", its founder and visionary David Landau told Glass in an exclusive email interview. [For an in-depth profile of David and his wife, Mary-Rose Kahane, see the Winter 2025 edition of Glass (#181)]. What began as a small, local event, has evolved with Landau's support into an expanding international event, growing in quality, participation, exhibition offerings and audience, and welcoming an impressive 165,000 visitors last year, according to festival organizers. As Landau himself says, "very few protagonists in the world of glass globally now feel they can skip The Venice Glass Week!"
For its tenth-anniversary edition, the festival promises major innovations and the largest program yet, unfolding from September 12–20, 2026. An area attracting increasing attention within the festival's organization is that of the interaction between contemporary artists, from Lino Tagliapietra to Dale Chihuly, and Murano's traditional master glassmakers. Compared to the previous edition, the public can look forward to an increased number of workshops, special openings, talks and guided tours of historic glass furnaces, across Venice, Mestre and Murano, with over 200 events showcasing works by artists from all over the world.
One of the most significant new aspects of the glass week is "The Venice Glass Week HUB" by Generali, which will be located in Morosini Palace for the first time. The exhibition will showcase contemporary glass sculptures and works by around 50 international and Italian artists. Meanwhile, Galleria di Piazza San Marco will again house "The Venice Glass Week HUB under35", displaying 52 works by 39 emerging international artists.
To celebrate this festival milestone, the fourth edition of Murano Illumina il Mondo (“Murano Lights Up the World”) will make its debut during the same week, bringing together two major events dedicated to the art of glassmaking in a single event. From September to November 1, 2026, St. Mark’s Square, the heart of the city, will be transformed into a spectacular open-air public exhibition space, featuring 12 large-scale glass light installations suspended beneath the historic arcades of the Procuratie Vecchie. Murano glassworks and the city’s iconic architecture will merge into a creative and contemporary reinterpretation of the Venetian artistic landscape.
Moving on to Murano, this island community will host a true highlight of the week. “Layers of Light” is an exclusive exhibition by one of the most influential figures in the contemporary art of glassblowing, Lino Tagliapietra. To mark this special occasion, the artist will present a lifetime of art, revealed through the evocative interplay of lights and shadow across the surface of glass.
Also in Murano, the island's glassmaking tradition has being reimagined through the groundbreaking initiative "Murano: Upcycling Glass" organized by Consorzio Proomovetro Murano. The project aims at demonstrating how traditional glass artistry can evolve by embracing more sustainable approaches, particularly the use of recycled glass and raw materials. Hosted at the Murano Glass Museum, the exhibitions will showcase 40 artistic creations, raising the public awareness about recycling in an aesthetic way.
Similarly, throughout the entire duration of the week, each initiative and artist will find their voice expressing their personal styles and aesthetics, while art lovers will find themselves continually surprised by sculptures, installations, and galleries popping up in every corner. Of special note are the three new monumental outdoor sculptures with which the American artist Dale Chihuly returns after thirty years from his last artistic tribute to the city of Venice.
Going deeper into the program, “Shape of Silence” by Tanja Pak deserves a special spotlight as a must-see exhibition. Through this unprecedented solo project, the artist explores the fragile threshold between the material and intangible nature of glass. Working with pâte de verre crystal glass, Pak transforms the lightness material into a medium for capturing the feeling of a moment, whose elusive presence ultimetly reflects the fragility of human existence.
To gain a complete insight into the technical processes behing finished artworks, the De Santillana Foundation presents the third chapter of "The Archive Capsule: Uran", a reaserch exhibition format exploring new ways of presenting a selection of the later experimental works by Laura de Santillana (1955-2019), an Italian artist of great significant to Venice's glassmaking tradition. The archive brings finished sculputers into dialogue with sketchees, phorographs, and documents, sheding light on the different steps of the artist's creative process.
This year, more than ever, the majority of events, outdoor installations and open fournaces will be accessible to all visitors free of charge. Thus, beyond exhibitions, is worth dedicating a few stops of the festival tour also to hand-on workshops and live demonstrations, to watch glassmakers at work. These activities offer the singular opportunity to gain a closer perception of the glassmaking process firsthand and ideally take home a self-made piece of art as a lasting memory of the experience. Children will be involved too, for instance, taking part in the creation of jewels at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Getting around between all the different venues will be easy thanks to Venice's water buses, connecting the city center with the island of Murano. Good to remember is just to reserve a spot when required, so as not to miss the events of greatest interest. Further information about it a day-by-day full calendar of the program is available at the official website The Venice Glass Week 2026.