Para-Exercises in Self-Consumption (Vessels)

These explorations in glass were created during a programme that invited artists unfamiliar with glass to work with the medium. Vessels borrows a gesture from the embroidery series Exercises in Self-Consumption, in which each piece was created by removing fibres one at a time from the bottom edge of a piece of fabric, then using each one as a thread to be sewn back into the fabric from its top edge.

In Vessels, the self-cannibalising gesture is replicated by recycling glass vessels of varying colours and forms. Since these vessels are mass produced, one vessel could be crushed into fragments – which I did manually using a hammer – and contained within another version of itself. Put into the kiln to be “re-fired”, the shapes of the vessels were modified by the high temperatures; the higher the temperature, the more glass melts and fuses before solidifying again once it cools. To visualise these effects, the vessels were fired at temperatures of increasing intensity: 680°C, 730°C, and 780°C. Arranged in order of the temperatures at which they were fired, each set of vessels conveys the illusion of progressive liquefaction.

These experiments began with an abstract thought of how a seemingly homogenous entity might have an interior space that feels dissonant from, and even irreconcilable with, its exterior form. Despite the high temperatures, the firing process does not cause the vessel and its contents to fully cohere. Though they are made of the same material, and appear to be a single continuous object, the interior fragments remain visibly distinguishable from the exterior glass encasing it.

This work was first exhibited in the showcase for Refraction Index, an informal incubator conceived by Daniel Chong in which five artists were mentored by glass artist B. Jane Cowie. The showcase ran from 19 to 28 January 2023 at The Yards @ Joo Chiat [Singapore].

Photos by the artist and Marvin Tang.