The theme of the 58th annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, "Youth and the Future of Culture," explores the contributions and experiences of young people and how they create, innovate and sustain cultural practices and traditions. This theme is focused on youth from around the globe.
This year’s theme, Youth and the Future of Culture, spotlights young innovators under 30—the largest demographic in recorded history—and highlights how they shape the cultural landscape they will inherit. With 52 percent of the world’s population under thirty, youth participants will explore and present creative practices ranging from traditional building crafts and Indigenous language reclamation to digital media production and lowrider-bike innovations.
Karen Weaving Circle
The Karen Weaving Circle is a group of refugee weavers who came together to revive their textile tradition after moving to the United States. Members meet at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to weave together and to hold classes for the next generation of Karen artisans.
Students keeping their textile traditions alive.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Preservation Trades Internship Program
Preservation Carpenters
George Washington’s Mount Vernon is committed to training the next generation of skilled artisans through its robust preservation trades internship program. Undergraduate students learn the philosophy and skills of preserving an historic eighteenth-century building through on-the-job experience, working side by side with master craftspeople, particularly in the areas of preservation carpentry, timber-frame construction, and heritage masonry.
American College of the Building Arts
American College of the Building Arts (Charleston, SC)
The American College of the Building Arts is dedicated to preserving traditional building crafts through education and hands-on training. Students learn from master craftsmen in a variety of trades, including carpentry, masonry, and blacksmithing, ensuring that these vital skills are passed down to future generations.
Joseph Kincannon, Master Stone Carver
Sacramento Academic & Vocational Academy (SAVA)
The EV Lowrider Project was selected to showcase and represent Sacramento at the prestigious Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Featured in the Streetwise section of the festival, this project highlights the creativity and innovation of SAVA students. It reached hundreds of thousands of visitors and offered national recognition to students, educators, and sponsors alike.
Street Art and Graffiti
The Festival’s Streetwise activities and presentations showcase the creativity with which young people, past and present, express their connections to the public spaces they inhabit. Whether living in urban, suburban, or rural communities, they claim these sites through a range of creative practices—mapping routes and communities and reshaping their surroundings in the process. In real life, and out on the street for all to see, they transform everyday spaces into hubs of display, interaction, and community. As artists and athletes, their activities often emerge in unofficial, irreverent, and unexpected ways.
Native Language Reclamation in the United States
At the Folklife Festival, the Native Language Reclamation in the United States program featured four groups representing different languages, regions, and ways of life and learning. Each had engaging cultural demonstrations around what connects them to their cultures and motivates them to learn their languages. Visitors of all ages got to try their hand at Myaamia ribbon work and lacrosse, learn Kodiak Alutiiq social dances, play Hawaiian ukulele tunes, learn from Mohawk basket makers, and more. Programming in the Gifts from the Land area highlighted their traditional foods and relationship to their environments.
Museum of Contemporary American Teenagers (MoCAT)
The Museum of Contemporary American Teenagers (MoCAT) was started in 2017 by high school and middle school students in Montgomery County, Maryland. For the Festival, MoCAT will bring together teenagers from across Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia to collaborate on exhibitions that highlight some of the dynamic and often overlooked youth movements that shape American culture.
Their setting will feature a high school hallway, classroom, and auditorium and a bedroom and bathroom where teens can share everything from fashion to their futures. Through performances, discussions, and demonstrations, teen participants will explore topics as varied as “third spaces,” social media, fashion, slang, and coming of age. MoCAT will also explore pressing topics such as school lockdowns and mental health, presented from the perspective of young advocates and activists.
What People Are Saying
"The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is a celebration of culture and community. The youth-focused theme this year is inspiring, showcasing the creativity and resilience of young people from around the world," said one attendee on Instagram.
"The Folklife Festival is a unique opportunity to learn about different cultures and traditions. The youth theme this year is particularly relevant, as young people are the future of our world," said another attendee.
Olathe Leadership Lowrider Bike Club - Teen builders and riders exhibit custom lowrider bicycles, highlighting community-driven automotive artistry and cultural pride.
Looking Ahead: Nation’s 250th
The 2026 Festival is officially framed as “Nation’s 250th,” marking the semiquincentennial of U.S. independence—and is being billed internally as a “Festival of Festivals” to celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. In addition to the traditional week-long lineup of performances, demonstrations, and workshops, city and Smithsonian planners envision a month-long festival umbrella called “Of the People,” which will build on the Folklife Festival by incorporating cultural celebrations from all 50 states and U.S. territories.
As with every year, the Festival will be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., free to the public, timed to coincide with the July 4 holiday. 2026 dates are expected around the first week of July. Planning is already underway with major philanthropic and institutional backing. 2026 is being positioned as the centerpiece of the nation’s 250th-birthday commemorations, with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival at its core.
