Atelier Aperti is a Venezia da Vivere event established in 2016 to enhance the profile of master artisans, introduce craftsmen within their workspaces, and inspire new generations; for ten years, it has presented a program of conferences, meetings, exhibitions, workshops, itineraries, and cocktails.
From April 15 to 18, 2026, Atelier Aperti returns, part of the official program of the National Day of Made in Italy established by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, and brings the public to the places where craftsmanship is alive.
With free access or by reservation, the ateliers open to the public with workshops, talks, guided tours, live demonstrations, and laboratories. Master artisans share their research, techniques, and processes.
Atelier Aperti is the Venezia da Vivere project that networks ateliers and creative spaces.
The PROGRAM of the 2026 edition, featuring over 50 ateliers and more than 105 events including performances, workshops, and talks throughout the city, including special events curated by Venezia da Vivere.
The theme of the 2026 edition is “In the Mode”: an active modality where design, material, and gesture meet. The public enters the processes, observes how objects are born, and meets those who create them.
The ateliers are accessible and operational spaces: materials, development, construction. At the center is conscious practice: natural or regenerated materials, attention to the supply chain, limited productions, and the value of durability.
On the occasion of the 2025 edition, the city proved to be a widespread laboratory with 53 open ateliers, 106 events, and over a thousand participants. An intense program consisting of meetings, visits, workshops, talks, and presentations of new collections, where designers, tailors, stylists, goldsmiths, mosaicists, lace-makers, potters, glassmakers, engravers, printers, and florists opened their doors to share their work, materials, techniques, collaborations, and the gestures that create value.
Atelier Aperti: the third edition opens the doors of creative spaces from April 15 to 18, 2026. All events are always free, designed to communicate the value of this Italian heritage and make craftsmanship and art accessible and understandable to everyone.
The Venezia da Vivere Way
“Atelier Aperti demonstrates that Venice has always been a workshop-city.” states Laura Scarpa “To promote craftsmanship and enhance the city’s cultural vitality requires vision, networking, and communication: it is the Venezia da Vivere method.
Letting artisans speak, sharing projects within workspaces, building relationships that inspire new generations and bring value to the territory. Venice is a UNESCO World Heritage site for the value of its talents.
With our projects, we give a face to the creatives who live and work in Venice today, and every day contribute to carrying our city and Italian craftsmanship into the future.
In 2025, we explored the theme #IntelligenzaArtigianale. The objective is to explore the relationship between manual work and new technologies. Artificial intelligence can optimize time and resources and support companies in creating digital archives, valuable for preserving techniques and products, without replacing the human value of gesture and artisan knowledge.”
A look to the future
“Atelier Aperti is an observatory: it allows us to read ongoing changes and respond to the concrete needs of artisans and creatives.” continues Lorenzo Cinotti.
“Through various projects, we are building a cultural ecosystem that connects traditional knowledge and new technologies, micro-enterprises and international networks, students and masters of craft. In this context, craftsmanship becomes a lever for urban and social regeneration. Each atelier is a living outpost where skills, relationships, and opportunities intertwine.
Supporting these spaces—and fostering the creation of new ones—means nurturing resilient communities, restoring centrality to the crafts, and contributing to a sustainable, inclusive, and dynamic Venice.”
An international audience
In these years in which the concept of Made in Italy is increasingly important and discussed, and hundreds of thousands of new workers are being sought to meet the ever-growing demand of the global market for craft products, Venice has chosen to respond with action, participating in the Day of Made in Italy from the first edition.
The active participation of a large audience confirms every year that there is a need for authentic experiences, for unmediated stories. The people who participate, citizens from throughout the region and tourists visiting the city, discover that in Venice there exists a living productive fabric, made up of creative entrepreneurs, skilled craftspeople, and young people who choose to stay, enhancing and innovating traditional techniques.
The event also involves creative studios and art galleries, design studios, associations, schools, creating a living map of Venetian creative energies.
The April 2026 edition
From April 15 to 18, 2026, Atelier Aperti returns with events that will present artisans, designers, galleries, and creative realities of the territory.
Thanks to those who—year after year—have opened their doors, shared time and ideas, and made visible the creative richness of Venice. Each exchange has contributed to drawing a map of relationships that continues to grow.
Photos by Marta Formentello.
