New Perspective sculpture at Glass Futures

A monumental optical glass, mirror and wood sculpture has gone on display at Glass Futures in St Helens, Merseyside, UK, for the duration of 2024.

The sculpture, entitled ‘New Perspective’, was made by Richard Jackson and Sally Fawkes and is on show with a selection of their smaller works.

The inception of New Perspective was an exhibition entitled ‘Reflection’ held at Salisbury Cathedral in 2016. That show, curated by Jacquiline Cresswell, challenged the selected artists to respond to the context of the cathedral and its 900-year history.

Sally and Richard were inspired by:

• The technological advancements made at the time of the building of Salisbury Cathedral, which began in 1220
• The skill of the craftspeople employed whose marks can be seen and touched in the fabric of the building
• The cathedral’s place as a centre of inclusive reflection and its adaption to societal changes over the centuries.

The sculpture takes the form of two glass columns, each marked with its own history and language, linked by a path of mirror, like a path of light. Reflections and refractions displace and multiply new images in new settings, showing new paths, new lines of sight and new points of view. A new perspective is opened out among the old.

New Perspective symbolically projects the vision of Glass Futures of expanding possibilities through inspiration, exploration, curiosity and imagination, paving the way to change for the better. For this reason, New Perspective was chosen to take centre stage in the reception atrium of Glass Futures.

Glass Futures has a 165,000 sq ft, state-of-the-art, multi-disciplinary glass melting facility, the Global Centre of Excellence, which will be capable of producing up to 30 tonnes of glass per day in a specially designed and purpose-built experimental furnace.

Glass Futures is a not-for-profit membership organisation created by the glass industry for the future benefit of society. It connects the global glass industry with academia to demonstrate innovative technologies through research and development that will make glass and other materials zero carbon for a sustainable future, enabled by glass.

The installation was arranged by leading glass collector and member of Glass Futures’ Membership Council, Mark Holford. A total of 75 pieces of his collection are on exhibition at The World of Glass, located five minutes’ walk from Glass Futures.

Glass Futures is at St Helens Linkway, St Helens, Merseyside WA9 5DT, UK.
https://www.glass-futures.org

Find out more about the artists’ work via: www.jacksonfawkes.com

Image: Detail of New Perspective by Richard Jackson and Sally Fawkes on display at Glass Futures. Photo © Sally Fawkes