Glass Boat
This summer is so hot and dry.... And I am sweating everyday facing huge flame to create a glass boat! From sometime in 2007, I have been thinking about making a boat made of glass bubbles.
This glass boat is a metaphor of my journey as a nomad. Since I left my home country in 1999, I have been moving to many places while carrying bubbly dreams about the future. I would describe the dreams as fragile, ethereal but not sad. I hope that glass bubbles convey those feelings.
Thanks to Ontario Art Council and the department of Chemistry in the Western University, I was able to start the project with enough funding and access to a good facility. The boat is made of borosilicate glass tubings blown with a glass lathe. There will be 24 bubbly tubes --I call them sausages-- for the bottom of the glass boat. Every part will be made of tubes, not rod, to make the boat float.
I am hoping to finish the boat by September and to do some test runs in the nearby river. The boat is designed to float in the water, but who knows what would happen! I am crossing my fingers. I will update some photos after the test run.
3D rendered image of Glass Boat
Bottom sausages
Glass lathe
