The Glass Heart: Art, Industry & Collaboration

The Glass Heart | Two Temple Place

27 January - 21 April 2024

We were honoured to exhibit Peter Layton's archived installation 'Battery' in the highly anticipated 2024 exhibition The Glass Heart. This external showcase hosted at Two Temple Place united over 100 glass artworks spanning 170 years, and included a breathtaking new installation from our own resident artist Louis Thompson in collaboration with Sophie Thomas.

The exhibition highlighted works from the historic industrial glass heartlands of Stourbridge in the Black Country and Sunderland in the North East, alongside the contemporary home of stained glass at The Stained Glass Museum in Ely. In its exploration of narratives central to glass art and manufacturing The Glass Heart celebrated the timeless skills, artistry and innovation required to work with this challenging material.

 The exhibition was conceived and curated by curator and writer Antonia Harrison. Antonia Harrison said:

“As a material, glass has a particular vitality. From the molten state of its formation to the reflective and light emitting qualities of its final form, glass retains an amorphic heart. As artist Sam Herman pronounced, Glass is a dance of immediacy’.

These vital qualities lend glass its particular power as an artistic medium – one which reflects, commemorates and illuminates our human condition.”

The Glass Heart is a Two Temple Place exhibition, produced in partnership with National Glass Centre Sunderland, The Stained Glass Museum, Ely and Stourbridge Glass Museum.