As the campaign reaches further and further afield, people from all over the world have offered their support.
The national glass centre in Sunderland has a global reach. The world of glass artists and artisans is fairly small and well connected. Many have reached out to tell us of their dismay at the peril the National Glass centre’s news of closure and relocation.
There is a lot of unrest and concern surrounding the loss of heritage craft. International researchers who the NGC and the university draw into the city, will no longer have any reason to come here.
Why is this important?
Back in 2011 Creative Cohesion headed a glass exchange program with Washington DC Glass, our sister City. The link between Washington DC and Washington in the North East goes back to the president, George Washington, for whom both were named. In conjunction with creative cohesion and the National Glass Centre lots of local artists benefited from the exchange, and we have kept lasting friendships with our Washington DC colleagues.
Without those organisations, and the magnetic draw of the national glass centre for research, we wouldn’t have had any of the opportunities that we have enjoyed since that program. International trade, introduction to the American market, skills shares, exhibitions, conferences and so much more.
Please read Michael Janis’ blog from the time. It has recently passed 11 years since their visit, and it still resonates with everyone who was privileged enough to be involved.
https://fulbright.org/2021/07/19/strong-heart-of-glass-michael-janis-united-kingdom-2012/
Besides working with the University students and faculty, we also were able to create informal workshops on how technology and social media is changing the art world. These talks were extremely popular – with the standing room only audiences that came from the student body of the University as well as working artists from Sunderland, Newcastle, and as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland. The audience stayed long after the talk, and topics from the discussions continued to come up during our entire Fulbright program stay (and indeed, afterwards via the internet) showing the strong relevance of the concepts.
Since our mission, we were invited to show as artists at galleries in London and at the Sunderland Museum, and we had the Sunderland artists featured in an international exhibit held in Washington, DC the following year.
While our mission as Fulbright Scholars was to impart information, we left having learned many lessons.
Michael Janis, Fulbright Scholarship
These artist exchange programs and research fellowships are the life blood of creativity in Sunderland. They are one of the few things that has global reach and appeal. Without this amazing national institution and it’s powerful ethos of exchange and support, how can somewhere like Sunderland truly level up?
We don’t pick and choose our heritage or our culture. It grows as a natural response to our history and how we view our future. Up until last year the National Glass Centre was still being billed as the gem in Sunderland’s crown. There have been many recent project’s highlighting our glass heritage People’s Pyrex, art deco Joblings glass, Love Pyrex. To name just a few.
Glass is still very much at the heart of Sunderland. We need to work together to make it known that the National glass centre, and all it embodies, is cherished and respected the world over.
To deny public consultation on such important local issues is culturally insensitive at best, and woefully ignorant of the community’s they serve at worse.
Do you have a story about the National Glass centre? We are actively looking for articles to publish on the blog to keep up the momentum we have built so far.
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