Le Musée de la Mine de Saint-Étienne, France
Glass is Tomorrow transposes the knowhow of the glassmaker into the heart of the design of future possibilities in the four corners of Europe and exhibits a hundred or so prototypes produced at six co-creative workshops at the Musée de la Mine. These workshops gave rise to about a hundred objects that have something to contribute to the experiences of beauty, challenging the assumed fragility of the secular ceramic and glass-making crafts and industries or the great glass manufacturers, which, in many cases, have collapsed. The themes of the six workshops that took place ahead of this exhibition: mixed media (The Glass Factory Boda), liquid fusion (Corning Museum of Glass - The Glass Lab™ Boisbuchet), inside-outside (Verrerie de Saint-Just - ESADSE), le luxe silencieux (CIAV Meisenthal), Light/House (Pasabahce Denizli), making-makers (RCA London).
Reinventing the glass-making arts through design: it is no longer industry that drives innovation, but people who find the inner strength to create, to immerse themselves in the culture of each place in the regions anchored in a tradition of glass-making. Seeking a revival and a future. The meaning of beauty: an exploration of the creative processes. Moulding or glass-blowing, hot or cold work; the glass-maker's steps around the workshop follow a pattern like a dance by Matisse. Each gesture can be providential, or fatal to the project sketched out on paper. If the beauty of the glass-maker's gestures never ceases to fascinate, that of the designer resides in the transformation of this material yet to take shape.
The designers who will be showing their glass pieces at the Biennial are Gwladys Alonzo, Flavie Audi, Autoban, Dina Baïtassova, Claire Baldeck, Mark Braun, Vincent Breed, Aude Briet, l'équipe du CIAV, Nigel Coates, Nathalie Dewez, Christian Ghion, l'équipe de Glass Lab™ du Corning Museum of Glass, Jeanne Gautier, Christophe Genard, GGSV, Pawel Grobelny, Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Kaspar Hamacher, David Hanauer, Iveta Heinacka, Simon Kashmir Holm, Benjamin Hubert studio - Luca Corvatta, Matilda Kastel, Norayr Khachatryan, Marika Kinnunen, Matti Klenell, Tomas Kral, Clément Le Mener, Pierre Lhoas, Eino Mäkelä, Studio Monsieur, Tamer Nakisci, Fredrik Nielsen, l'équipe NUDE - Sinem Hallı et Sevgi Kes, Michel Philippon, Amaury Poudray, Camille Roger, Adrien Rovero, Vanessa Royant, Studio Rygalik, Lucile Soufflet, Louis Thompson, Sema Topaloglu, l'équipe de la Verrerie de Saint-Just, l'équipe Ramazan et l'équipe Ali du groupe Şişecam, Terese William Waenerlund, Jeremy Wintrebert, Pia Wüstenberg.
Read more about the exhibition here.