A gathering of 27 artists, professors, and students gathered at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam for a two-day meeting described by co-organizers artist Marc Barreda and Gerrit Rietveld professor Jens Pfeifer as a "think tank" to consider the future of glass education. The assembed group, supplemented by online input solicited through a Tumblr page, are tackling a broad range of topics, including the economics of running a glass department, changes to curriculum, whether there is a bias against glass art, and a range of questions about the future.
The meeting in Amsterdam comes almost three months after an academic symposium at UrbanGlass in December 2013 convened for two days of presentations about challenges facing the glass education field. In fact, Barreda and Pfeiffer were among the presenters, and announced their initiative to create an ongoing forum for discussion.
About the goals of the meeting in Amsterdam, the organizers write on their Tumblr page: "With this event The Glass Virus wants to inaugurate the second part of its platform by invigorating and expanding the discussion on the future of glass art education that was opened at the ‘Issues of Glass Pedagogy’ symposium at Urban Glass in New York.
Our prime goal is to bring together professors, teachers and students from academic glass programs worldwide, as well as artists and theorists who are devoted to the issues of glass art education.
In regular sessions we want to enhance the discourse by proposing new structures of communication and spinning an active network of glass programs all over the world."
For more information, follow the Glass Virus Tumblr Page.