ACTIVITIES

Special events were organized as part of the conference program or to coincide with the conference dates.   

There were also great opportunities to explore the wonders of Whanganui with suggestions such as these. 

The CoLab Collaboration Chandelier

To celebrate the theme of collaboration, Crystal Chain Gang - with lots of help! - made a collaborative chandelier for The CoLab Conference. NZSAG & Ausglass Members were collaborative partners in this exciting project, which saw us collectively create a dynamic, illuminated and unique work of art glass. The finished piece was on exhibition at the Sarjeant Gallery over the course of the conference. The project could not have been realized without the generous support of NZSAG, Ausglass, The Sarjeant Gallery and New Zealand Glassworks.

BEach furnace

Castlecliff Beach was the backdrop for another iteration of a centuries-old tradition; use of a wood-fired furnace for glass-making.  Sui Jackson (Australia) lead a team in building an adobe furnace; a simple, wood fired constructions that could be built quickly and cheaply from locally sourced materials. In this instance the furnace and annealing chamber were built from bricks salvaged from a furnace that was demolished from New Zealand Glassworks early in 2018. Throughout the afternoon public demonstrations from local and international glass blowers show just what can be done when working in this primitive style.

Castlecliff glass ‘dig in’

In collaboration with Progress Castlecliff and in a tradition established in the seventies and eighties at Castlecliff beach, our ‘dig in’ saw 100 glass art treasures buried in the dark volcanic sands of this beautiful stretch of New Zealand’s west cost. Conference delegates, the public and school groups l joined in this fun activity and went away with ‘treasure’.