The Material Journey exhibition, with new and revisited work, considered the impact of a project in the context of the Anthropocene, and ran from 9th June to 13th of October 2018 in the Research Gallery at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland.
The Anthtropocene is a contested, but useful, term to describe the current epoch in which human civilisation has made a discernible geological impact on the planet. The Anthropocene makes us consider the impact of human activity on the planet's ecosystems.
As such, I wanted to explore the physical journey glass makes, from the factory to the studio, from the studio to the gallery... It is by no means an exact science and it did open up a rabbit hole of questions; where do you stop? However, the key part was asking the question and standing still for a minute to consider where and how materials 'live' in our midst. I am grateful to the National Glass Centre, and Julia Stephenson in particular, for encouraging me to undertake this work and to place it in the context of ongoing PhD research.
This work was discussed in the peer reviewed Arts Journal (2019).
