The Corning Museum will partner with the musée des Arts décoratifs to offer free, public GlassLab design “performances” with top French designers in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, October 22-27, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day.
Designers who will work with GlassLab at the musée des Arts décoratifs are a mix of fashion, graphic design and product designers include Antoine et Manuel, François Bauchet, Wendell Castle, Matali Crassat, Sylvain Dubuisson, Benjamin Graindorge, Constance Guisset, Arik Levy, Vanessa Mitrani and Didier Tisseyre. On October 22, Marco Mencacci from the Ecole Camondo of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs will work with Corning Museum glassmakers in a day-long preview session.
A program developed by The Corning Museum of Glass in 2007, GlassLab helps designers better understand the possibilities of glass as a design material, encouraging them to design more innovatively for the material. The designers will bring their sketchbooks and concepts and work side-by-side with glassmakers in a unique mobile hotshop developed by The Corning Museum of Glass. The teams will prototype their design ideas in live glassblowing sessions, allowing audiences to watch the evolution of the designs as they are created.
"GlassLab has successfully provided designers from a variety of backgrounds with rare access to the glassmaking process, inviting them to explore firsthand the full potential of glass as a material for design," said Dr. Karol Wight, executive director of The Corning Museum of Glass. "We’re pleased to partner with the musée des Arts décoratifs, which has one of the finest glass collections in France, to offer this program for the first time in Paris. Our work with these contemporary designers builds on the very rich history of glass design in France."
Learn more here.