Ireland Glass Biennale 2023
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in association with the Office of Public Works announces the Ireland Glass Biennale 2023
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in association with the Office of Public Works announces the Ireland Glass Biennale 2023; an exhibition of work from some of the world’s most innovative glass artists, designers and craft practitioners. The Ireland Glass Biennale (IGB) exhibition will be on show in the Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle from 28 April to 20 August 2023. Through showcasing the excellence of contemporary glass practice, the Irish Glass Biennale (IGB) aspires to further the public’s understanding of the creative potential of glass and to act as a catalyst for cultural activities which centre around glass.
Glass practitioners from Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East and Asia are among those selected by the international panel of jurors, each bringing expertise in their respective fields of glass curation, practice and education. Jurors included Kim Mawhinney, Senior Curator of Art at National Museums Northern Ireland; Katya Heller, Director at the renowned Heller Gallery in New York; Zhang Lin, Founder, Director and President of the Shanghai Museum of Glass and Karen Donnellan, artist, and educator. The exhibition is curated by Dr Caroline Madden of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
This exhibition is co-funded by the NCAD and Creative Europe as part of a Creative Europe project: Imagining Sustainable Glass Network Europe (ISGNE). This EU funded project includes four partners in the UK, Germany, Latvia and Ireland, and engages with thirty-three associated organisations in nineteen European countries. This ambitious five-year project has initiated a dynamic schedule of cultural events, workshops, exhibitions and publications revolving around glass and its endless possibilities within the context of intangible cultures, visual and applied arts and design.
We are delighted to announce our two Keynote speakers for the 2023 Irish Glass Symposium:
Thursday 27th April:
Kevin O ’Dwyer, Visual Artist
“Jazz musician Miles Davis once said, “If anyone wants to keep creating, they have to be about change”. As an artist you soon realise that one’s creative practice is multi-faceted and constantly transforming and evolving throughout a lifetime.
In this presentation I will touch on my personal practice as a metalsmith and a sculptor as well as highlighting collaborative and community-based projects that used artistic practice as a conduit for storytelling, education, and the empowerment of a community.”
Friday 28th April:
Andrew Brewerton, Professor Emeritus at Arts University Plymouth
Andrew will address the core theme of the Symposium, Creative Resilience: advocacy and community building through educational and glass practice(s), and its emphasis on authenticity in practice. His talk will touch upon language as a material poiesis, on the ambiguous spaces between thinking and making, idea and artefact, and on the power on not knowing. He will draw on exemplary practice in poetry and glass and explore wider dimensions of making as intrinsic to human learning, identity, politics and place. ‘Creativity’, as the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei wrote, ‘is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.’
Ireland Glass Biennale 2023 will be on show at the Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle, 28 April–20 August 2023, 10am–5pm daily. Closed for Lunch 1:15-1:45. Free admission.
For more information please contact ireland_glass_biennale@ncad.ie
