Working at distance became possible through regular Zoom meetings, where we talked and laughed a lot.

Our starting points were two of our respective works ‘Claude Glass’ (Panneels, 2016) and ‘The Four Stories of a Valley’ (Asai, 2019). Landscape and language became the anchor points for our collaboration. Working remotely, across different time zones, and continents and thinking and speaking in different languages, made this very much a ‘confluence’ of cultures.

Inge hosted Mariko in her studio by explaining different glass making processes, introducing her to the different glass types through Zoom. These discussions led them to use the striking red glass in the window as an anchor point for their collaboration. The small blue glass pieces were inspired by both the ‘Cloud Atlas’ Panneels produced for this exhibition and the text from Asai’s story: the many blue jackets, the blue jacket… As such the installation ‘Atlas’ is a joint, albeit remote endeavour.

This work is a first collaboration. Discussions also covered practical things of course, such as font sizes, fixings and clips and different paper types. Japan has a rich history of paper and has an astonishing array of papers which are not as readily available in the UK so trying to find common ground in materials was part of the process too.