Expanded North Lands Creative Glass campus will host international conference in September

North Lands Creative Glass, located on the coast of Northeastern Scotland in the former fishing town of Lybster, has offered Master Class glass workshops to a growing number of international students since 2002. It also hosts an annual International Conference revolving around relevant themes in the contemporary art world. This year’s conference, titled “The Place and the Work”, will take place on the weekend of September 6th and 7th, 2014, and aims to explore the role of the artists’ surroundings in the work they create.

A line-up of presenters and speakers includes Master Class instructors Petr Stanicky, Angela Moore, and Kristiin Uslar (all of whom will be teaching right up to the conference), as well as experts from the museum field and academia, such as Sven Hauschke, director of the European Museum of Modern Glass, and Andrew Shoben, professor of public art at Goldsmiths College. Big questions will be posed about realizing visions inspired by landscape, weather, politics, or social context, and about what it means to be a specialist in glass art in this time and place in history. Many of today’s glass artists travel around the world to different studios or gallery spaces to learn or teach, exhibit work, create or collaborate with other artists, begging the question, how does being away from home or outside a familiar studio environment affect an artist’s work?

The 2014 International Conference attendees will have the opportunity to explore a recently built workshop to the Alastair Pilkington Studio at North Lands Creative Glass. The art center has also added a new residential structure to increase accommodation for class instructors and artists-in-residence. This expansion earlier this year was made possible by funding from William Grant & Sons Charitable Trust and Highlands & Islands Partnership Programme. Support from Friends of North Lands and the Dan Klein Memorial Fund, established in 2009 after the passing of one of North Land’s founders, directors, and the chairman of the advisory board, also contributed to this growth.

Designed by Chartered Architect Michael Roper and Karyln Sutherland, an architect and glassmaker local to the region, the vast new workshop space was officially opened by Dan Klein’s surviving partner Alan J. Poole on April 4, 2014. Filled with natural light, artists have the space to draw, develop ideas, and photograph their work. The workshop provides more space for seminars and other North Lands Creative Glass programming, including this summer’s conference.

Cost of attendence to "The Place and the Work" is £200. Members of the Contemporary Glass Society and Scottish Glass Society will receive a 10% discount on conference fees. Master Class participants and full-time students are also eligible for a reduced fees of £160 and £145, respectively. For more information about schedule, list of speakers, and lodging options, visit the conference webpage.

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