Futuring Studio Glass Ecologies

Decolonize sustainability paradigms in studio arts with glassmakers connected to Indonesia, Sweden, South Africa, Belgium, Palestine, and the United States.

Ivan Bestari Minar Pradipta is from Yogyakarta city, Indonesia. He has worked with glass since 2011, after meeting a glass master in his town. Experimenting with the master’s torch, he developed his flameworking art. He uses any kind of waste glass that he can find. In his own words, "Used glass material is a real challenge for me, but I will never give up. I still try to push this material and my skills further to make artworks with all those limitations.
Recycled glass flameworking became my style, became my way to express my mind and what I feel, how to transfer my imagination within process of metamorphic from waste into artwork in the burning flame."

Caitlin Greenberg is a lecturer of Fine and Studio Arts at Tshwane University of Technology and subject coordinator for glass. Her exhibitions include Glass Safari 2024, Pretoria Art Museum - Fired Up 2022, 2022 Nirox Sculpture Park – ‘Good Neighbours’ winter sculpture exhibition, Exploring Visual Cultures – International Online Exhibition – Collective Memory 2021, Pretoria Art Museum – Blow Your Sculpture 2021 & 2019, Pretoria Art Association – ‘Back to the Future’, group glass exhibition 2018, Group Exhibition for Cool Capital – Light your Fire 2016. Competition highlights: Thami Mnyele Art Awards – Johannesburg, Final selection 2018 and 2007, Sasol New Signatures – Pretoria Art Museum, Final selection 2014, PPC Competition – Pretoria Art Association, Final selection 2007.

Lothar Böttcher is a South African glass sculptor whose cold-worked optical glass sculptures are held in permanent collections at the Corning Museum of Glass (USA), the Glasmuseum Frauenau (Germany), the Glasmuseum Lette (Germany), the Glasmuseum Hadamar (Germany), the Pretoria Art Museum (South Africa), and the International Biennale of Glass Collection (Bulgaria).

Frederik Rombach is the owner of RERO Glass, an activist artist working with post consumer glass and the founder of the Green Soda Movement. Frederik built a public access post consumer glassblowing studio from a shopping trolley. Starting with nothing, RERO glass now works on commissions internationally, hosts workshops and events for up to 1600-2000 people per year. Besides setting up collaborations with universities to explore sustainability in glass, Frederik also works on outreach projects with young immigrants and hosts residencies for artists from all over the world.

Anna Mlasowksy is a German-born artist, curator, and University of Washington MFA alumna. She opened the Ballard art gallery Das Schaufenster in 2020. She is currently a professor of glass and ceramics at Konstfack in Stockholm, one of Scandinavia’s most important art schools. 

Kris Rumman is a Palestinian-American artist that uses glass to creates sculpture, performance, and installations that act as impermanent fugitives in search of home. Most recently, Rumman was awarded a collaboration with Pilkington NSG, a global glass manufacturer, to actualize her project Body-Building, which debuted at the Center for Visual Arts, the Toledo Museum of Art and went on to be seen at Urban Glass as a part of her first solo show in NYC. 

This is an event of the Spring 2026 Social Justice Academy: Environmental Justice. Learn more about the academy and RSVP for additional speakers, creative workshops, and action events by clicking here.

Visit Politics and Human Rights for more information about the major and minor. For more information, write to erinoconnor@mmm.edu.

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