Venue: Royal Danish Academy School of Design Bornholm
Date: Sep. 16th. 2012 
Time: 9.00 - 16.30 

Tickets: are sold through Billetlugen.dk 570 Dkr. / 80 Euro  

This conference will spotlight and address current themes impacting contemporary European glass. The studio glass movement is now celebrating it 50^th anniversary as an independent artistic practice. Half a century is a significant amount of time, yet the movement still seems young seen in the perspective of general art history. This calls for an opportunity to take stock of and look ahead for future opportunity, relevance, positioning, development, discussion ect.

• What did the studio glass movement set out to do, and what did they achieve?

•  How does the studio glass movement identify itself in a craft and art context?

•  How can glass in the future position itself in the consciousness a larger audience? And where lies the responsibility to do so?

•  Do we need any changes at all in the way we think about and make glass..?

Conference speakers:

Rosy Greenlees (UK)- Executive Director of the Crafts Council 

UK Crafts Council has been exploring the role of craft in relation to other sectors and the spill over value of this activity.  Makers today work in a far greater range of contexts collaborating with scientists, technologists and engineers. There is a distinctive value added to these collaborations by makers through thinking style, social making, material knowledge and making skills. This talk will show and discuss examples of such collaborations with particular reference to the makers working in glass who play a key role in this activity.

Presentation Rosy Greenlees - pdf download

Pia Strandbygaard Bittner (DK) - Arthistorian Glasmuseet Ebeltoft

State of the art….
Is contemporary glass considered art? Is “Studio glass” today merely considered a historical term pointing to a group of international artists who attempted to free themselves from the factories and use of traditional handicraft in the 1960’s and instead merge artist and craftsman into one? What is the position of contemporary glass today? Who defines it, what is it, what is its purpose, who sees it and why? Is “glass art” a part of the contemporary art scene and should it be so? Or does contemporary glass live in an isolated world outside the established art world?

Presentation Pia Strandbygaard Bittner - pdf download

Jutta-Annette Page Ph.D (DE/US) - Curator, The Toledo Museum of Art

50 years of studio glass - from an avant-garde craft to a medium for art.
Jutta-Annette Page is curator of Glass and Decorative Arts at the Toledo Museum of Art. She was the curator of European glass at The Corning Museum of Glass from 1993 to 2003. Jutta completed her degrees in Visual Arts in Germany, then studied jewelry design at San Diego State University and went on to receive an MAE in Jewelry/Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design. A few years later, Dr. Page earned her MA and PhD in the history of art and architecture from Brown University. A respected author in her field, she has completed numerous publications and lectured extensively. She has served as Secretary and Chair of the International Council of Museums' (ICOM) Glass Committee, and is currently the President of the Glass Art Society.

Róisín de Buitléar (IR) - Glass artist exhibiting at EGC2012

Is there a better way?  Journaling a European interchange of knowledge between glass and design professionals.
GLASS IS TOMORROW is a European network, which aims to establish a more fluid exchange of knowledge and competencies between glass and design professionals. Involving over 15 nationalities, this innovative project challenges the subject of finding new topologies for utilitarian glass through exploring aesthetics and techniques in hot glass production. Róisín de Buitléar one of the participating artists, will tell the story of this historical glass journey that started at the Iittala glassworks in Nuutajärvi Finland in September 2011, continued in Novy Bor in the Czech Republic ending in Centre International d’Art Verrier ( CIAV) France in June 2012. The project is supported by the 'Culture' (2007-2013)  programme of the European Union. Exclusive images of the glassworks, and commentary on key dialogues, idea generation, and innovations taking place, will provide an engaging insiders view of the project providing a unique flavour of Europe from three important glass centres. 

Maja Heuer (SE) - Executive Director at The Glass Factory

Quo vadis – about new opportunities and directions for Swedish glass
Swedish glass finds itself in a process of major transformation, both with regard to design and artistic expression and the parameters of the glass industry, which currently are undergoing radical changes. How can we face and work with this restructuring, which presents whole new demands both on the glass trade itself, and glass expression as well as new communications forums for glass. In 2011 such a Swedish glass forum was created in the form of The Glass Factory, an experience-based, interactive glass museum with a quality-assured operation located in the heart of the Kingdom of Crystal. With its glassblowing room, the museum serves as a knowledge centre and creative meeting place for artists, designers and visitors, who have the opportunity to experiment with various new innovative projects at the same time as various thematic series serve as the basis for the blowing room's basic production.

Jerome Harrington (UK) - Glass artist exhibiting at EGC2012

An expanded approach: Thinking about glass whilst making an object in plasticine

My talk will introduce an ‘expanded’ approach to glass practice  - three of my recent works which ‘investigate’ glass but don’t actually use the material itself.  I will contextualise this work with a discussion of my recent project Glass in the Expanded Field (2011) which employed Rosalind Krauss’s notion of the Expanded Field, to propose that the field of glass practice has been affected by a similar expansion. 

I will explore how such an ‘expanded’ approach might extend the field of glass practice, by offering insights into glass’s materiality or offer new modes of working.  The talk aims to raise questions which explore the difficulties faced by such an ‘expanded’ approach when the majority of glass orientated calls for submissions ask for work where ‘the materials used must be predominantly glass.’

Presentation Jerome Harrington - pdf download