Glass artists Ivan Bestari (ID) and Hannah Gibson (UK) conducted a series of events to socialise scrap glass as an artistic medium, facilitate collaborations, and explore the potential for a diverse glass art ecosystem in Indonesia.
Glass artists are few and far between in Indonesia, presenting a potential we wanted to explore with this collaboration. Hannah and I both work with scrap glass, but we use very different methods. This spurred plenty of fruitful discussions regarding the history and ecosystems of glass art across the world.
From the beginning, our focus has been on how to maximise the value that we bring to the table with this project. The main problem we faced as soon as we started was that scrap glass—which was very commonplace to us both—was not a material that artists, designers, or craftspeople are familiar with.
We worked out a solution by collaborating with Yogyakarta Avatar Studio, Duta Wacana Christian University, and the National Industrial Design Centre (PDIN) to conduct a series of events socialising the usage of scrap glass as an artistic medium. In the end, this project evolved beyond a simple collaboration of two artists—it became Glass Beyond Borders, a project promoting a new artistic medium for the public in Yogyakarta.
Socialising scrap glass as an artistic medium
If we were to socialise any kind of new artistic medium, we knew that the first thing we needed to do was a workshop. To this end, we collaborated with Studio Avatar Yogyakarta—experts in ceramic art and kiln manufacturing—in a workshop on the scrap glass kiln process.
We held a total of four workshops. For two of them, we invited students from the Product Design Department of Duta Wacana Christian University. The other two were open to the public, which we held at Otakatik Creative Work (otakatik.org).
We followed up the workshops with a showcase event at the National Industrial Design Centre (PDIN).
We displayed the results of the scrap glass processing experiments that participants conducted during the workshop, Hannah’s and my artworks as glass artists, as well as collaborative artworks between participants.
We displayed all the tools and materials we used in our workshops so the public can have a better idea of scrap glass processing. We also conducted an additional mini workshop on how to upcycle glass bottles by cutting them for reuse. Stakeholders commended our innovation in processing glass waste.
