The Glass Lab
The Glass Lab is a school of glass alchemy hosted within The Glass Foundry.
It exists to enable the Glass Arts to SURVIVE, DIVERSIFY & develop INNOVATION through COLLABORATION. It does this through fundraising and offering residencies, scholarships, exhibitions and outreach workshops.
SURVIVAL. Glass Art, though an ancient craft, is an increasingly expensive one which is why glass courses at universities have significantly declined. Graduates from the remaining courses are struggling to find placements in professional studios to develop their practice & establish themselves. There are also many artists whose practice has lapsed because of the difficulty of maintaining a studio & a majority of these, our research shows, are women.
DIVERSITY. Creative Director of The Glass Foundry, Fiaz Elson, had to overcome biases related to her ethnicity & gender to achieve her position in the field. The Glass Lab will prioritise diversity, equity & inclusion in its outreach, selection & hosting of residencies and scholarships.
INNOVATION. Bringing something new to the methods of making & showing glass art. To thrive & not just survive we need to foster originality & invention, not just in processes of creation but in ways audiences’ access & purchase the work.
COLLABORATION. Glass Art, perhaps because of the complexity & precarity of its production, is an isolating endeavour. While artists meet on the exhibition circuit they don’t regularly correspond or collaborate in the making process. We want to change that and make glass art a welcoming community of practice and collaboration.
Glass Lab Alumni
Artist in Residence: Sam Mukumba
We’ve enjoyed Sam Mukumba’s presence and particular genius in the studio recently.
Artist in Residence: Estabrak
Estabrak is an independent and progressive cross-disciplinary artist, film maker and facilitator, whose work brings visibility to marginalised communities, everyday experiences and people.
Artist in Residence: Camilla Hanney
Working through ceramics, sculpture and installation Camilla Hanney practice explores themes of time, sexuality, cultural identity and the corporeal, often referencing the body in both humorous and challenging ways.
Artist in Residence: Jonny Briggs
Artist Jonny Briggs is truly innovative in his application of glass during his residency. We are so excited to see his finished pieces and how they will look in his engaging, endearing and often very funny photographs.
Artist in Residence: Halima Cassell
Halima Cassell brings her exquisite sculptural aesthetic to the medium of glass. Born in 1975 in Pakistan, brought up in Lancashire and now living in Shropshire, Halima's varied, multi-cultural background is tangibly present in her work.
Artist in Residence: Virna Pasquinelli
Virna Pasquinelli is a multidisciplinary creative whose work extends from millinery and mixed media textiles to set design and installations, drawing inspiration from urban life and the fringe subcultures within it whilst grounded by the sophistication, majesty and mystician of her of her more classical Roman upbringing.
Artist in Residence: Chuting Lee
Chuting Lee is a performance artist and maker that brings a background in footwear design, fine dining and surrealism to the Glass Lab. We look forward to seeing what comes out of the kiln as her residency progresses.
Scholarship Recipient: Verity Pulford
Verity Pulford was in the first group to join us at the studio in mid May, for her Glass Lab scholarship, funded by the Culture Recovery Fund. Her delicate and intricate work is inspired by organic structures- in particular the small details- the shapes and textures of algae, fungi, lichen, moss and ferns. At the Glass Lab she experimented with kiln casting natural shapes.
Scholarship Recipient: Gill Hobson
Gill Hobson, an established artist using glass to create stunning immersive installations, joined us to explore how she could bring her knowledge and sensitivity of colour to the kiln casting process.
Scholarship Recipient: Antonio Fois
Antonio Fois is a ceramic artist who creates sculptural and functional pieces in stoneware and porcelain and combines them through organic materials. Now, after his time with the Glass Lab, he also incorporates glass.
Scholarship Recipient: Alexandra Searle
Alexandra Searle makes work that drips with character and immediacy. In her time with us she experimented with the slumping of glass and fell in love with the medium.
Scholarship Recipient: Lesley Logue
Lesley Logue is an arts educator and fine artist. Her main themes, which she explores through text and sculpture, are memory, re-enactment and repair.
Scholarship Recipient: Nissa Nishikawa
Nissa Nishikawa used her scholarship to produce glass artefacts to use in her ritualistic performance art, reflecting the breadth and depth of the work that goes on here at the Glass Lab.
Scholarship Recipient: Pratibha Mistry
Pratibha Mistry's glass art is informed and inspired by her background as a cellular biologist.
Scholarship Recipient: Zsofia Jakab
Zsofia Jakab is an interdisciplinary artist from Hungary, based in Scotland. Jakab's practice is closely supported by research, primarily working with sculpture, however, their practice tends to be a mixture of different techniques and media, combining printmaking, painting, textiles, and video work as well. Both in her art practice and research, Jakab is drawn to ideas and investigations of liminal states, metamorphoses, and abjection by observing them in the context of Surrealism and Posthumanism.
Scholarship Recipient: Bones Tan Jones
Bone's work is a spiritual practice that seeks to present an alternative, queer, optimistic dystopia. They work through ritual, meditating through craft, dancing through the veil betwixt nature and the other.