Sunderland City Council’s cabinet has agreed to make an Article 4 Direction for the National Glass Centre (NGC), a move intended to bring any future demolition proposal under full planning scrutiny. However, the Direction will not take immediate effect and does not secure the building’s future.
The decision, taken on 7 October 2026, follows sustained campaigning to save the iconic building, which is owned by the University of Sunderland.
Subject to a further cabinet decision to confirm it, the Direction is set to come into force after a 12-month notification period. Once effective, it would remove the university’s permitted development right to demolish the building, requiring a formal planning application so that the council could assess the full planning merits of any proposal.
Importantly, the existing permitted development rights for demolition remain in place during the notification period.
The council said its decision followed a detailed assessment drawing on independent evidence and consideration of the potential legal and financial risks, including those associated with introducing the Direction with immediate effect.
Council leader Councillor Chris Eynon commented, “The challenges the university faces in sustaining this building are well understood. The strength of feeling of those who wish to find a way of preserving the centre is equally clear. There is no doubt this is a complex and emotive subject.”
Following the issue of a formal notice, there will be at least 21 days for representations to be made to the council. These will then be reviewed before cabinet considers whether to confirm the Direction. At the time of its announcement, the council anticipated that this second decision could be taken in December 2026.
Alongside this move, the council has decided to list the NGC as an Asset of Community Value, following an application by the Save the National Glass Centre campaign group.
Should the university decide to sell the building, this status would give the nominating organisation an initial six weeks to indicate whether it wished to bid, followed by a further four-and-a-half months to prepare its bid. However, the listing does not oblige the university to sell, guarantee a community purchase or prevent demolition. The university has eight weeks to request a review of the listing decision.
The NGC closed on 31 July 2026, following the university’s conclusion that structural issues, energy inefficiency and a multi-million-pound repair bill made the building financially unviable.
The closure was strongly opposed by glass artists and the wider community. Campaigners called for the university to pause its plans and allow time to develop alternatives, suggesting options including conference hire, an expanded online offer and a heritage hub. Their efforts have continued with the aim of protecting the building’s future.
In the two hours following the NGC’s closure to the public in July, photographer Lewis Alexander (The Teeside Photographer) took a selection of poignant black-and-white images of different views of the building, one of which is featured with this news story. See more of his NGC images here, as well as his 3D rendition of the building here. With the university applying to put a 3m fence around the site, this may be one of the few ways to still see the building.
Meanwhile, Sunderland Culture has been developing Glassworks: Sunderland in the former Peter Smith Antiques building in Sunniside, with proposed specialist facilities, workspaces and learning opportunities for glassmaking and ceramics. Read more here.
Cllr Eynon added, “Taking everything into account, our decision today, coupled with the decision to list the National Glass Centre as an Asset of Community Value, creates a window of opportunity for all parties to carefully consider their next steps.”
Modular installations that allow the forms to interact and adapt are the speciality of kiln-formed glass artist Malina Cipleu. Here she tells Linda Banks what drives her practice.
You have a background in psychology. What originally led you to start working with glass?
I studied psychology before I ever thought of becoming an artist, and at the time I didn’t imagine the two would eventually connect. Looking back, though, I think my interest in perception has always been there – how we organise visual information, how patterns emerge, and how much we understand before we consciously put something into words. When I began working with glass, I found a material that allowed me to explore those questions visually rather than analytically.
‘Botanical Field’. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
I came to glass unexpectedly, through a fused-glass event at my sons’ school and was immediately drawn to its capacity for transformation. Through heat, separate pieces could fuse into a continuous surface, while glass powders and particles could shift from something granular and distinct into something translucent, fluid, and entirely changed. That transformation gradually became part of the thinking behind the work itself.
Please tell us more about your creative process. Do you draw your ideas out or dive straight in with the materials?
I rarely start with a fully resolved drawing, but I make many watercolour sketches. The work usually grows from an observation, a structure, or a question. Sometimes that comes from something I have seen in nature, but it may be as simple as noticing how forms gather and disperse, how repetition creates rhythm, or how one system adapts around another.
Malina positioning glass elements that will form ‘Seed’s Memory’ wall art installation. Photo courtesy of the artist.
I sketch and work digitally when I need to think through scale or composition, especially for installations and public art, but much of the real development happens through the material. I make many tests, particularly with glass powders and small particles, and respond to what happens in the kiln. At lower temperatures the glass can retain a granular, particulate quality; at higher temperatures those distinctions soften and merge. I’m interested in these transitions because they parallel many of the ideas within the work – how separate elements connect, reorganise, and gradually become something larger than themselves.
How has your practice evolved since you began working with glass?
‘Primeval Gathering’ wall art installation. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
In the beginning, I was much more focused on learning technique and understanding what glass could physically do. Over time, technique became less of an end in itself and more of a language. My work gradually moved away from individual objects towards larger fields, repeated forms, and modular installations. I became increasingly interested in what happens between elements – how proximity creates connection, how repetition creates rhythm, and how a larger structure can emerge organically through the relationships among its parts.
That shift led naturally towards installation and public art. The work can expand, disperse, become more concentrated in certain areas, and respond directly to the architecture around it. I think of these compositions less as fixed objects and more as evolving systems.
‘Flora Ascending’ was made for a Royal Caribbean luxury loft. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
What message or ideas do you want to convey through your art?
Nature enters my work less as imagery and more as a way of thinking. I am fascinated by the intelligence within natural systems – the ways things organise, adapt, repeat, disperse, gather, and respond to one another without a fixed hierarchy. Lichen spreading across a surface, roots finding their way through soil, the spacing of tree canopies, or the movement of water can reveal forms of organisation that are both complex and remarkably efficient.
‘Blue Ripples’ wall art. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
What draws me to these systems are the underlying principles rather than their literal appearance. In my work, repeated glass elements accumulate, separate, or form larger fields. Each element has its own presence, but its meaning expands through its relationship with the elements around it. Complexity emerges through accumulation, repetition, and connection. Perception is another important part of this. We often sense a pattern before we can clearly identify it. Something may register at the edge of vision or gradually become legible through repetition. I’m interested in that threshold between sensing and knowing, and in creating work that rewards sustained attention rather than revealing itself all at once.
‘Impressions’ has a gently textured surface. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
Do you have a favourite piece or collection you have made? Why is it your favourite?
I tend to feel closest to the work that is most recent because it reflects where my thinking is at that moment. The body of work I created for my solo exhibition Open Thresholds feels particularly important because many of the ideas I have been exploring came together more fully there.
A view of ‘Open Thresholds’ solo exhibition. Photo: Malina Cipleu.
Open Thresholds begins with the idea that perception is shaped not only by what we see clearly, but also by what exists just beyond it. At the edge of perception, things begin to soften, making room for memory, intuition, and imagination. The work draws on rhythms and patterns found in natural systems – the ways they grow, adapt, repeat, and transform. For me, those processes offer a way of thinking about relationships, change, and the underlying intelligence connecting living systems.
Do you have a career highlight?
Moving into public art has been one of the most meaningful developments in my career. Seeing an idea move beyond the studio and become part of a permanent architectural space changes the way I think about the work. It requires collaboration, fabrication, engineering, and a greater awareness of how people encounter an artwork over time. Windows to Flight, a 22-foot-long kiln-formed glass installation commissioned for the Dayton Convention Center in Ohio, was an important step in that direction. Working at that scale helped open the possibility of thinking beyond an individual object and towards an installation as part of an architectural environment.
‘Windows to Flight’ installation at Dayton Convention Center in Ohio, USA. Photo: Maline Cipleu.
More recently, collaborating with artist Ana María Nava has expanded that thinking further through a site-responsive installation that wraps around the central staircase, following the architecture and creating a sense of movement and welcome as people enter the space. Public art has reinforced my interest in modularity and systems because the work has to respond simultaneously to its own internal relationships, the architecture, the site, and the people who experience it.
Malina with the installation ‘Encuentro’. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Where is your creative practice heading next?
I want to continue pushing the modular work further and exploring compositions that can expand, disperse, gather, and adapt to a particular space. I see my studio work and public art as different expressions of the same practice, shaped by different scales, spaces, and circumstances.
I keep returning to the intelligence of natural systems and to the way complex structures can emerge through relatively simple interactions. I’m interested in what happens when individual parts respond to one another, when repetition begins to produce variation, and when a composition develops without relying on a single centre or hierarchy. That thinking feels especially relevant as the work becomes more architectural. I want the installations to feel responsive rather than imposed – to grow through relationships among material, space, and surrounding elements. In many ways, I’m continuing to ask the same question that first drew me toward these systems: how can something complex, adaptive, and interconnected emerge from simple repeated forms?
Find out more about Malina Cipleau’s practice via this YouTube video, connect with her on Instagram @malinacipleu and Facebook @malina.cipleu, plus check out her website.
Main feature image: Malina Cipleu stands with ‘Magnetic Field’, part of the ‘Open Thresholds’ installation. Photo: Lilian Vega.
The 47th edition of Corning Museum of Glass’ flagship contemporary glass magazine, New Glass Review is open for submissions. Work must have been made in the past year, and the invitation is extended to all glass artists around the world, from students to established artists.
New Glass Review grew out of a groundbreaking 1975 meeting with early leaders of Studio Glass who saw that a thriving field required a place of encounter, a place to discover the work of other artists, designers, collectors, museums, and enthusiasts. Four years later, after the exhibition ‘New Glass: A Worldwide Survey’ brought Studio Glass to people across the US and Europe, New Glass Review was founded.
Most years, the Museum receives around 1,000 submissions from artists, designers, and organisations in more than 50 countries. These submissions are reviewed by a panel of curators, scholars, and artists, led by the Museum’s curator of postwar and contemporary glass or a guest curator. From these, 100 images are ultimately selected for publication.
Corning Museum of Glass states that what appears in New Glass Review is not what is ‘best’ in glass each year. Instead, it is a collection of works, chosen by individuals from across the world of glass, arranged to spark new ways to see and think about this incredible material and the people who use it expressively.
It says, “Send us your favourite, most creative, or most exciting works in glass from 2026. We cannot wait to see how you’ve been transforming the future of glass in 2026.”
Joanna Manousis outlines how she brought glass, chemistry, sculpture and jewellery together to inspire students at Birmingham School of Jewellery in her capacity as a visiting artist at the renowned institution. Could her ‘portable teaching’ model be a way forward for cash-strapped organisations?
The world has an uncanny way of bringing people together in the strangest places. I met Nuala Clooney, Lecturer in Jewellery and Object Making at the Birmingham School of Jewellery, during a historic sugar-working class with Ivan Day at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire. As we packed ground sugar and decidedly unpalatable binders into intricate wooden moulds to be upturned onto a cake, I commented on Nuala’s Gráinne Morton earrings. That is where the conversation began.
As a sculptor incorporating glass, Nuala already knew my work and, coming from the West Midlands, I, of course, knew of the School of Jewellery’s extraordinary lineage. Birmingham’s identity as the ‘City of a Thousand Trades’ is deeply entwined with making, and glass has long been part of that history. The city developed a significant glass industry, including the manufacture of glass buttons and other small decorative objects, alongside its renowned metalworking and jewellery trades. Glass and jewellery have therefore shared a history in Birmingham for generations, even if contemporary jewellery education does not always place the two materials side by side.
At the time, I was pursuing a PhD in cast mirror making at the National Glass Centre through the University of Sunderland. As a recipient of an Arts and Humanities Research Council award, I had an opportunity to take my research beyond the glass studio and explore how it might operate within different communities and locations.
Core-cast/faceted glass stone for a brooch setting, made by Joanna Manousis. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
Nuala had expressed an interest in hosting me at the School of Jewellery as a visiting artist or guest speaker, but funding was slim. That was when an idea clicked. What if I could visit regularly and teach jewellery students how to create their own glass forms for setting, using micro-core-cast hollows as surfaces for mirroring? How would makers trained in metalwork approach glass and mirror as materials? More interestingly, how would they use their existing skillsets in metalsmithing to set and transform glass into objects of adornment?
Nuala was excited to explore the project: to open up a new vocabulary of making for her students, while allowing me to see how my research might be interpreted by a creative community within a different sector, and how the glass would be bound to metal.
Students interacting with the Crafts Council’s handling collection. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
Crafts Council England provided objects from its handling collection for the students to explore as a springboard for ideas. Thirty pieces, made from a range of materials, were seen, touched and examined as catalysts for new glass jewellery designs.
With financial support to cover travel and accommodation from Northern Bridge Consortium, a portable diamond wheel for glass cutting and polishing donated from HIS Glassworks, USA, and glass billets, frits and powders from Bullseye Glass, USA, I commuted, Avon lady style, from Sunderland to Birmingham three days a week from September to December 2025.
Joanna demonstrates the mirroring technique for the students. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
Ten students (Eleanor Johnson, Ni Hua Cheong, Sophie Leigh, Joia Leigh, He Gao, Fangjing Hu, Abigail Mitchell, Mantong Jiang, Mili Lyu and Jingshan Hu) were selected from a pool of applicants.
We began with clay carving and silicone positives, creating bas-relief glass cabochons onto which mirror could be applied. This relatively quick process allowed students to see how hand-manipulated forms could become negative details within glass, and subsequently semi-reflective surfaces. I carried out the cutting and polishing at the National Glass Centre before returning the pieces for mirroring.
A student works on making an investment mould. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
There was a sense of alchemical wonder when I demonstrated the mirroring process using the interior of a Pepsi bottle, showing how tin can extract silver from a chemical cocktail to create a reflective surface. Suddenly, chemistry, sculpture and jewellery were occupying the same space. The students then selected one or two objects from the Crafts Council collection and developed their own designs, incorporating methods demonstrated throughout the workshops, including core casting, lost wax and cut glass. The breadth of designs developed in both the glass and metalwork was remarkable.
‘Into the City’ (2025), by Mantong Jiang, features core-cast glass and fabricated silver. Photo courtesy of the artist.
To highlight just a few projects, Sophie Leigh responded to a perforated resin egg by artist, Sarah King, creating the negative details of a hand-sculpted swan embryo in amber glass encased within a silver sleeve as a necklace. Mantong Jiang used the same glass-making process to create a miniature cityscape enveloped in a highly polished ink-blue glass dome, physically scaffolded into the architecture of a ring titled ‘Into the City’. Ellie Johnson took Dail Behennah’s delicate wooden sculpture, ‘Grid Sample’, as inspiration for a series of brooches, where lost-wax-cast circular discs appear to bulge beneath a lattice of silver wire. Abigail Mitchell and He Guo used Shelly James’s ‘Through a Glass’ and Helene Buffet’s ‘Hard Look II’ to explore the eye in translucent glass, while Joia Leigh carved intimate spiders in rose-pink and black glass, mounting them within intricately pierced silver webs as pendants.
‘Rabbit Eye Brooch’ by Abigail Mitchell, featuring lost-wax cast glass and copper. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
Many of the students fell in love with the process and possibilities of glass. One expressed an interest in pursuing glass in her career. With university glass programmes closing and specialist facilities becoming harder to access, glass risks becoming an expensive sidenote within otherwise thriving creative education. Few young makers have the knowledge or financial means to access private courses, and public facilities for developing specialist glass skills are increasingly scarce. Seeds need to be sown early if individuals are to dedicate a lifetime to the material.
Perhaps portable teaching offers a way forward. Glass can be introduced within existing university programmes without the overheads of establishing a full glass department. Students can manipulate materials and create moulds or waxes within their host institution, while firing, cutting and polishing can take place offsite where specialist equipment is available. With financial support for teaching time, transport and equipment, experienced glass artists can bring meaningful encounters with the material into communities that might otherwise never see or use it.
As displaced glass artists following the closure of the National Glass Centre, my husband, Zac Weinberg, and I are now facing our own dilemma of where to continue making and teaching. Finding premises capable of accommodating mechanised equipment, particulates and open flame is challenging enough, before the additional costs of insurance, rent and specialist machinery are considered.
For now, we continue to fabricate through residencies, primarily in the US, to fulfil exhibitions and commissions. However I remain optimistic that we will find an appropriate space in the UK: somewhere that can support our own practice while becoming a resource for education and access. The Birmingham project showed me that the appetite is there.
Perhaps the future of glass education does not always need to begin with a furnace. Sometimes it can begin with a conversation, a piece of jewellery, a handful of glass and an unexpected meeting over an intricately iced cake.
An exhibition highlighting the glass jewellery made within this teaching placement, along with the Crafts Council Handling Collection opens from 5-6:30pm at Vittoria Street Gallery (82-86 Vittoria Street, Birmingham) on 8 October 2026 and closes on 23 October.
Joanna Manousis will be teaching the methods used by students at the School of Jewellery in her class, ‘First Impressions’, hosted by Bullseye Glass on 14 November 2026. Video content is accessible long-term with two sessions taught online. Use this link for more details and to sign up.
Find out more about Joanna and her glass work via her website.
Main feature image: Cast glass/fabricated silver bangle made by Fangjing Hu. Photo: Joanna Manousis.
Glass artists and architects Tomasz Urbanowicz and Dr Konrad Urbanowicz, who run the ARCHIGLASS studio in Poland, have conceived and created an award-winning public art installation for Wrocław, Poland after winning a competition. The monument is dedicated to the Polish underground partisans active after World War II.
Concept drawing of the cuboids in the city square.
The designers had to answer three main questions when planning their submission. First, they had to decide how best to symbolically depict all Anti-Soviet Partisans, who they describe as “heroes acting in the underground, who were often anonymous, lonely, trapped, stabbed, imprisoned and erased”. They had to work out how to create a modern composition that would enrich the city square day and night, in a place often viewed only from the windows of cars or public transport. Further, they had to decide how to stir the imagination of viewers, show the depth of the message, honour these heroes, generate reflection and respect for them, while presenting a clear story to the younger generations.
A view across the city square showing the partisans at different angles.
Their answer was to create nine, life-size glass figures placed inside thick glass cuboids. The designers state: “The material refracts light, blurs visibility and symbolically evokes the fate of the ‘cursed soldiers’, their confinement and the fragile persistence of memory.”
The multidimensional sculptures with mysterious grey glass figures inside create an endless play of light and shadow, as well as subtle optical effects resulting from the different textures, transparency and thickness in the kiln-formed glass.
Each cuboid is unique, with a different figure inside.
The figures are set inside the solids facing in different directions. This means that they become more or less visible, depending on the passing viewer’s angle of observation. Symbolically, this represents the effects of their underground activity or the attempts of the authorities of that time to erase them.
The silhouettes are deliberately not set on pedestals. They explain, “Heroic partisans are like honest and upright people among us. However, the solids surrounding the figures are higher, emphasizing their nobility of spirit, and in addition referring in scale to the large, urban context of the square.
The cast glass partisans are supported by stands before being enclosed in the cuboids. Note the deliberate height of the cuboid above the figure.
“We do not see their faces accurately; we do not have a military rank; we do not distinguish with their name, date of death … but we feel their fear and situation with no way out. We become aware of their tragic and hopeless situation limiting the freedom of life, their experiences and dramas, cruelty, loneliness, and finally, often prison cell and death.”
Each of the nine sculptures is different, having been freely shaped in the kiln. They are arranged evenly on the city square in ‘military’ order and style.
The soldiers inside the slumped glass cuboids are made of kiln-formed glass (850 degrees C) on laser-cut ceramic canvas with a hand-made structure – a technique developed by ARCHIGLASS.
The kiln-formed glass partisans are slightly slumped to enhance the details.
In the second thermoforming process (600 degrees C), metal oxides are fired on the surface of the glass and the sculptures are slightly slumped on 3D moulds.
The soldiers’ images are based on original photographs from that period but have been modified and mixed to represent the whole group rather than particular individuals.
The glass pieces are life-size, with each figure about 200 cm in height.
The Anti-Soviet Partisans’ Memorial was commissioned by the City of Wrocław, Cultural Department, “Remembrance and Future” Centre, History Centre Zajezdnia, with co-financing from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
In 2024 the project won the Jury’s prize for Best Artwork in Public Spaces and the People’s Choice Award in the CODAawards competition.
In September 2026, a 1:5 model measuring roughly 40 cm (figure) and 60cm (cuboid) in height was shown at the Venice Glass Week HUB by Generali.
Find out more about ARCHIGLASS and their other public art projects here.
Main feature image: The Anti-Soviet Partisans’ Memorial lit up at night. All photographs courtesy of ARCHIGLASS.
When Maria Donnai discovered she was the recipient of an Alexander Tutsek Foundation scholarship, she chose to develop her glass powder-based practice into producing 3D pate de verre. Here she describes the experience of travelling from Yorkshire to Germany to hone her skills.
The email informing me that I had been successful in my application arrived on Christmas Eve. What a brilliant start to the Christmas holiday! I had seen the opportunity to apply for a scholarship provided by the Alexander Tutsek Foundation in the CGS newsletter and submitted a last-minute application without really considering what was on offer.
Therefore, it was rather a shock to discover that I would be going to Bild-Werk Frauenau’s Summer Academy in Germany and that this would not be a long weekend in a studio in Munich, but a much more intense 17 days in the small town of Frauenau, somewhere in the Bavarian National Park.
Bild-Werk Frauenau fosters creativity and collaboration among its international students and teachers. Photo: Maria Donnai.
After a bit of research, I learned that Bild-Werk is an amazing place. Founded in 1987 as a non-profit educational institution, it offers a range of creative courses, not just in glass making, and aims to promote the exchange of knowledge, practical skills and ideas across borders and cultures.
I was quite nervous about travelling that far and being on my own, but, as the Victorian world tourist Mary Hall said, it was time for me to “Take every precaution and abandon all fear”. So, case packed with all the necessary PPE (dust masks, gloves, Yorkshire tea), I set off on my adventure.
I arrived after what felt like an epic adventure on planes, trains and automobiles. The team at Bild-Werk was so welcoming and made sure that we all knew what was going on right from the start. Everything was in English and German, information boards in the communal areas were updated daily and there was always someone happy to explain or translate when required.
It took a few days to settle into the rhythm of life in Frauenau, but I soon became accustomed to getting up early (6am!) for a walk to the baker’s for my fresh bread rolls. I even worked out the rather random opening hours of the local supermarket.
The lessons were from 10am – 6pm, but all the studios remained open 24/7 and it was not unusual to find someone working at any time of the day (or night!). It felt fabulously self-indulgent to totally focus on making art. However, there were also many extracurricular activities – evening lectures, demos, trips out and social gatherings. These, along with the communal soup lunches, brought people together from across the different courses. Listening to conversations that switched between German, English, Dutch, Czech and even Hebrew, I really felt part of an international glass community.
I had chosen to study pate de verre with Tali Grinshpan as I knew that this would complement my existing practice of working with glass powder. I was keen to learn how to make three-dimensional forms in glass and wanted to use a technique that I could continue to develop in my own studio at home.
The Andy Goldsworthy-inspired tree decoration. Photo: Maria Donnai.
Tali had put together a varied and interesting course that encouraged us to try other methods of working – land art, cyanotype and clay were all experimented with. Land art is art made and left in specific locations outside, as practised by the artist Andy Goldsworthy. Tali showed us some images of his work and challenged us to go outside and create something using only what we could find in nature. The aim was to take a photo to document the piece and then let nature claim it back again. I battled wasps and ants and 30-degree heat to decorate a tree. I found these activities a useful way of resting my brain between periods of intense concentration on pate de verre.
Concentrating on developing new processes. Photo: Arthur van Buuren.
Bullseye Glass had generously donated a selection of glass powders and frits and we had the luxury of colour testing for the first few days whilst we learned how to mix the paste. Three kilns were fired at three different temperatures and the schedules had been carefully worked out to allow us to open them each morning and get the results.
Colour testing in the kiln. Photo: Maria Donnai.
As the course progressed, we learned how Tali adds botanicals to the glass powder and how she makes her signature scrolls and vessel shapes. Then we each took these techniques in our own directions. For me, this meant concentrating on how to manipulate the paste to create organic, three-dimensional forms.
Tutor Tali Grinshpan (left) and me discussing the results. Photo: Arthur van Buuren.
When the course came to an end there was a final exhibition of students’ work. This provided an opportunity to see what had been created in the Gas-Werks studios, which contained the ‘crazies’ working in the hot shop, coldworking and lamp working studios. Theirs was a much noisier environment than our quiet pate de verre room!
The first new 3D shape created. Photo: Maria Donnai.
I returned to East Yorkshire tired, but full of enthusiasm to practise what I had learned. Previously I had been working with glass powder in plaster moulds, making very thin and relatively flat pieces. This new method of working allows me to make more complex forms that I shall eventually combine with porcelain.
Four good fungus shapes created using the 3D technique. Photo: Maria Donnai.
My experience at Bild-Werk Frauenau was all I had hoped for and more. I learned a new technique, started to develop new ideas and made new friends from all over the world.
As an added bonus, I can also confidently ask for “two bread rolls , please” in German.
About the artist
Maria Donnai is a visual artist based in Hull, working primarily with glass and ceramics. She intentionally uses these delicate materials to encourage reflection on the fragility of nature and ongoing concerns around species extinction.
Inspired by natural history collections, her work consists of multiple small pieces that are assembled as sculptures or installations, often taking a museological style in their presentation.
Maria has recently completed an MA in Creative Practice. She had her first solo show in 2026 at 87 Gallery in Hull. She was also a finalist for the Scott Creative Arts Foundation (SCAF) award this year. She currently has work on display in the CGS ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ and Blowfish Gallery ‘Fifteen by Fifteen’ exhibitions in Stourbridge, West Midlands.
Find out more about Maria and her work via her website or on Instagram: @mariadonnai
Main feature image: An example of Maria’s 3D work, created using new techniques she learned on the course. Photo by the artist.
The international research conference Making Futures takes place at Arts University Plymouth from 29-31 October 2026 and registration is open until 15 October 2026.
Making Futures brings together scholars, makers, artists, designers and educators to explore the frontier of material practices in the context of sustainability, community regeneration and technical innovation. This year’s theme is Care, Reciprocity and Responsive Matter, which will be explored through six conference tracks.
First convened in 2009, the conference is focused on the transformative potential of material and fabrication practices, whose tacit and traditional ways of making contribute to new, progressive futures where people and the planet live together more harmoniously. It seeks to situate material cultures and material knowledge at the centre of the many critical issues facing global consumer society, including how we might move beyond mass consumption towards an inclusive, regenerative economy capable of supporting social well-being and enabling more resilient communities.
As a platform for challenging the material status quo and inviting speculation on how traditional approaches to material production might inform emerging technologies and economies, Making Futures advocates for the importance of shared human heritage, social making, and the significance of place in the value of creative form.
This year’s event explores the relationship between objects, material intelligence, and the emotional encounters that shape the use, substance and physical form of the interfaces we design with and through the world around us. The exploration follows a materials ontology approach to artefacts, open to both a reflection on the characteristics of human design and making, as well as the ‘more than human’ understanding of materials within craft, materials science and engineering, biotechnology, critical ecology and environmental advocacy.
The three-day meeting features a cross-disciplinary programme of speakers and specialists. It takes place at Arts University Plymouth, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, PL4 9AT.
Conference registration is open until 15 October. Find out more and register via this link.
Arts University Plymouth offers a CertHE Ceramics and Glass course and an MA Glass course via its hot glass studio and Fab Lab South West.
The 9th John Ruskin Prize is open to entries from artists, designers and makers, amateur or professional, from anywhere in the world.
This year’s theme, ‘Not for Present Delight’, invites artists, designers, and craftspeople to question the role of the maker today, considering what it means to understand the world not only as it is, but as something we can actively shape.
In “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, Ruskin urged architects and masons to build as much with the future in mind as for the present day. This year’s Prize expands this idea across the fine and applied arts, opening space for reflection and discussion on how creative practices might carry forward-thinking intention, responsibility, and care.
The exhibition welcomes work that functions as a tool for change or critique, while asking the question: Must art serve a purpose beyond itself? Can it exist simply for pleasure, independent of moral or social obligation?
The Prize welcomes works in all mediums, including glass in all forms, drawing, painting, print, sculpture, photography, textile, animation, mixed media, digital, performance, installation and more.
Submissions must be digital in format as work will be viewed and judged digitally.
Work must have been made within the past four years. The main criteria is that the piece engages with the theme. Both individual artists/designers and collectives are eligible to apply.
The selection panel will select work for inclusion in an exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, from 28 January to 21 February 2027.
Four winners will receive prizes totalling £9,500: a 1st Prize of £3,000, The Alan Davidson Under 26 Prize of £1,000, Ruskin Mill Trust Prize of £3,000 and the Chelsea Arts Club Award of £2,500.
The Contemporary Glass Society’s (CGS) Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition, which launched at the August 2026 International Festival of Glass (IFoG) event, has been extremely well received.
The show continues at The World of Glass in St Helens until 31 October 2026, giving visitors an extended opportunity to experience this unique celebration of contemporary glass. In addition, for those who cannot visit in person, CGS has a showcase of all the exhibits online, which you can view and purchase here.
Prices range from £85 to £500, making it an ideal opportunity for both first-time buyers and established collectors to acquire original glass art. Proceeds from sales support the exhibiting artists, The World of Glass, and CGS’s ongoing programme of exhibitions, education and events, including celebrations marking our 30th anniversary in 2027. Several pieces have sold already, so make sure you have a look soon.
You can also vote for your favourite to win the People’s Choice Prize (via the same link) up to 1 November. This £250 prize is sponsored by Mark Holford.
The other prize winners in the Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition have already been announced and are listed below.
Best in Show – sponsored by Vessel Gallery (£300 Prize): Laura Quinn with ‘Unfurl’.
‘Unfurl’ by Laura Quinn is made using lampworking techniques with the inner cavity silvered and sealed. Photo: Laura Quinn.
Most Innovative Prize – sponsored by Mark Holford (£150 Prize): Ian Chadwick with ‘GlAsS Momento Mori’.
‘GlAsS Momento Mori’ by Ian Chadwick features kiln-formed glass and cold working, creating an articulated skeleton. Photo: Ian Chadwick.
Patron’s Choice – sponsored by Mark Holford (£50 Prize): Becky Harris-Cowley with ‘Glass Curiosities’.
‘Glass Curiosities’ by Becky Harris-Cowley is a mini cabinet of curiosities formed through sandblasting. Photo: Becky Harris-Cowley.
Highly Commended – sponsored by Mark Holford (£50 Prizes):
Claire Williamson – ‘My 80s curio collection’
Dovile Grigaliunaite – ‘Adaptive Assemblage X’
Lyndsey Gates – ‘Aspicio’
Sarah Smith – ‘A Poppet Self-portrait’.
Congratulations to all our participating artists for making this such a wonderful display, and a big thank you to the sponsors for supporting CGS once more.
Stourbridge Glass Museum invites visitors to explore a new perspective on glass in a new international exhibition called The Other Glass/The Art of Recycled Glass. This international exhibition celebrates the creativity, resilience and unexpected beauty of reclaimed materials. The show takes place from 29 August 2026 to 27 February 2027.
Curated by Norwegian artist and author Tone Ørvik, the exhibition brings together 10 contemporary artists from seven countries who transform discarded, repurposed, geo-specific and second-life glass into extraordinary works of art. They create sculpture, stained glass, jewellery and functional objects.
Working with everything from discarded bottles, windows and television tubes to studio scraps, jam jars and locally sourced natural materials, the artists reveal the hidden potential within glass and challenge our understanding of value, sustainability and craftsmanship.
The featured artists are Irene Frolic (Canada), Frederik Rombach (Belgium), Hannah Gibson (UK), Jeanne-Sophie Aas (Norway), Gregory Alliss (UK), Debbie Dawson (Ireland), Ioana Stelea (Romania), Mafalda Maya (Portugal), Jeff Zimmer (UK) and Lulu Harrison (UK).
Non-traditional glass has been seen as discarded, dirty, difficult. The invited artists focus on the story inherent in the glass itself, its origins, its history, its second life, as much as the personal perspectives they bring to their work – giving evidence to the resilience and beauty of The Other Glass.
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