Kiln Formed Glass

Kiln-formed glass is a process that involves layering and shaping glass in a kiln, where it is gradually heated to high temperatures to fuse or slump into moulds. I use sheet glass, stringers and frit (crushed glass) to introduce colour and transparency. To me the process is reflective to geological timescales - glass melting and cooling mimic natural forces like volcanic activity or tectonic shifts. As heat transforms solid into fluid and back again, the work becomes a reflection of deep time, permanence, and impermanence. It’s in this process I am both maker and witness to these elemental changes, echoing natural processes that shape the earth.

This transformative process provides a potent metaphor for the concept of land ownership. Land, often viewed as fixed and possessed, is in fact constantly changing - eroding, shifting, being redefined by climate, history, and use. Kiln-formed glass, shaped by heat and pressure, parallels how human claims over land are shaped by power, violence, and time. Just as glass reveals its history in every bubble, crack, or layer, land bears the marks of its past: colonisation, displacement, cultivation. The process of working with glass becomes a conceptual mirror for examining how we try to contain and define what is inherently fluid and our attempt at ownership over something that ultimately resists permanence.