The best in glass art comes to Stourbridge for a special event this weekend.
The Glass Biennale is on at the Ruskin Glass Centre and other venues around the Stourbridge area, and if you think you've seen what can be done in glass then think again. The worlds best exhibit at this very special event.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So my name is Janine Crisley and I'm Festival Director for the International Festival of Glass.
00:06And you're here today at the moment in the British Glass Biennale, which is our flagship exhibition,
00:12which is full of artists from the UK, the best artists in the UK doing contemporary glass.
00:17And there is some amazing work here. We've got 143 artists represented.
00:22So although it's the British Glass Biennale, a lot of the artists are living in the UK
00:29but coming from different nationalities, different places.
00:31So it's a really exciting mix, very creative, very diverse.
00:35Lots of different techniques, lots of colour this year.
00:38So what we noticed two years ago, because the festival is every two years,
00:42is that artists, because of the Covid impact, were creating very small works
00:47because they couldn't get out of their studios.
00:49This time you're going to see fantastic big pieces as well.
00:52So we've got everything from tiny little beads to some whopping great stained glass panels
00:57and they look amazing.
00:58And there's all kinds of workshops and demonstrations that people can watch and get involved in.
01:03That's right, isn't it?
01:04So the festival goes over four days.
01:06We've got artists from China and Japan.
01:09We've got our Hong Kong with America throughout Europe.
01:13They are here demonstrating, showing you what they can do.
01:16And we've also got workshops where you yourself can have a go at doing it, which is really great.
01:21That's from families right through to people who might be professional artists
01:25who just want to learn a new skill.
01:26So there's something for everyone here.
01:28So although we're here at the Ruskin Glass Centre and there's lots going on here as the main festival hub,
01:33there's also other venues taking part as well.
01:36So there's activities going on at the Established Glass Museum,
01:39at the Red House Glass Museum, at the Lace Guild.
01:43There's an exhibition of student graduate work at General Office.
01:47And there's a church involved as well.
01:50So there's lots of things happening over the whole weekend.
01:54It's going to be fabulous.
01:55One of the special things is on Saturday night where we've got a huge great pyrotechnic display going on
02:01by a company called Walk the Plank.
02:03They did our finale in the very first festival,
02:05so we've invited them back as part of the past, present, future theme
02:09to actually create our Saturday night spectacular.
02:12So there's still tickets available for that.
02:16Hello. Welcome to the Red House Glass Cone.
02:18Let's take a look inside.
02:23Wow, Mark, this is huge, isn't it?
02:36I mean, it looks big from the outside, but when you come in, it's like the TARDIS, isn't it?
02:39Yes, it definitely feels bigger now.
02:42We've got quite a lot of space in here.
02:45Yeah, because there was quite a big gantry and stuff in the middle previously, wasn't there?
02:49Yeah, so it's all been taken out and we've now got quite a big open space in here.
02:53Definitely worth coming down to check.
02:55Cool. And the furnace is hoping to return at some point, so there's a bit of glass blowing.
03:00But the idea is to kind of keep this open space nice and versatile and appreciate the cone more, I guess.
03:06Yeah, so it means that we can have some visiting exhibits.
03:09We can do a lot with the space.
03:11The hot glass studio was just in one of these corners here.
03:15It's been closed off for a bit, but we're hoping to have it open again very, very soon.
03:20Great, so thank you, Mark.