Rugged, Sabrina Dowling Giudici, 2021, kiln-formed recycled glass vessel, 170mm dia.
Saltwater Illuminations
Introduction
Located across the two World Heritage marine areas of Shark Bay and Ningaloo Coast, this glass art exhibition and publishing project, highlights the innovative uses of waste glass, particularly for civil construction. The use of glass landfill continues unabated in these locations, recognised for their wealth of biodiversity and natural beauty. The small settlements however, are inundated with glass waste from ecotourism activities and the vast Australian distances preclude economic transport to recycling facilities. Alternative solutions are required. The making and exhibiting of recycled glass art as objects of beauty and curiosity, is an innovative way to raise the conversation topic and challenges local decision makers to prioritise active consideration of how to convert and use glass waste in-situ.
Italo-Australian transcultural artist, Sabrina Dowling Giudici calls on her artisanal family traditions, and passion for her adopted land, to create objects for story telling using both local recycled and art glass. Drawing her audience in with shared experiences of living and recreating along this coastline, Sabrina aims to interpret in glass, elements of the marine ecosystems, highlighting the seagrass and coral reef habitats. Using photomicrography to observe and record patterns at the cellular level, she aesthetically translates them into kiln-formed glass objects of art, while also referencing the patterns in her family’s heritage in lace-making and building works.
The glass artworks are the basis of five tools to promote marine conservation and science education, for the public, industry and governance groups. A series of five project goals will be realised:
- Public workshops with immersive education activities using recycled glass, to creatively interpret World Heritage marine habitats;
- Create and exhibit glass artworks for a travelling exhibition along the Gascoyne coast and in the capital city of Perth, Western Australia;
- Research and submit a collaborative academic article for Open Access;
- Publish a reference book of glass art that communicates science and conservation education goals, using multiple languages including English, Italian, and local Aboriginal languages that are being revived.
- Publish a website that actively updates the contents of the reference book using QR codes as the linking mechanism from the book to the online resource.
Wooramel, 2021, Sabrina Dowling Giudici, kiln-formed recycled glass, 290x130x30mm.
The world renown Shark Bay seagrass meadows are sustained by occasional flooding of the two rivers, Gascoyne & Wooramel. This river gum leaf inspired artwork aims to remind us of the terrestrial connection between land & sea. The health of the seagrass meadows is significantly impacted by land clearing & grazing practices inland. Increased sediment in the river flooding can suffocate seagrass as much as it can deliver important nutrients. This limited collector edition features a seawater inspired colour palette.
The Blown Away exhibition on Gascoyne coastal life and land-forms, was held in Carnarvon, Western Australia, January 2022 during the annual wind sports festival.
A characteristic feature of the Western Australian coasts of the Dirk Hartog, Dorre, Bernier and Koks Islands, and the coastline along Point Quobba, is the occurrence of huge blocks of calcrete (Calcretized limestone). Located on the tops of low coastal cliffs, weighing up to at least 700tonnes, these boulder deposits are thought to have resulted from submarine slumping on the continental slope, local faulting, or asteroid impacts on the Indian Ocean off the Pilbara and Gascoyne coasts. Shifting visual scale from this coastline, to the micro, it’s ruggedness belies the delicacy of the flora and fauna life-forms living in the adjoining marine and shoreline habitats. But like the human inhabitants, often also astoundingly rugged, there is an innate resilience that parallels the delicacy and beauty of all the coastal life-forms. This artwork interpreting the pebbled limestone surfaces of the boulders, seems delicate but the tensile strength of glass makes it one of the hardiest materials used by humans across a wide range of industries, over many millenia.
Outcomes
This initiative meets the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030, specifically GOAL 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, and GOAL 14: Life Below Water.
The five outcomes are:
Reference Book – “Saltwater Illuminations – artistic glass responses to marine conservation.”
Academic Paper – “A science-art nexus in recycling glass in remote world-heritage environments.”
Public Workshops – Online, Carnarvon, Denham, Exmouth, Perth (Western Australia)
Presentations – Local Governments of Carnarvon, Exmouth, Shark Bay
Exhibitions – Carnarvon, Denham, Exmouth, Perth.
Shark Bay World Heritage Area: Zoom facilities were used to present a distributed community-arts workshop between Carnarvon, Denham, Perth. The Shark Bay Arts Council hosted the event with Malgana artists using glass as an art medium for the first time. The three dominant seagrass species represented are the Ribbonweed - Posidonia australis, the Wireweed – Amphibolis antarctica, and the Dugong or Paddleweed – Halophila ovalis. (Refer https://www.seagrassresearch.net/festival )
Background
This initiative commenced in January 2020 when glass recyclers Sabrina Dowling Giudici and Shayne Thomson (Future Glass), collaborated to initiate a recycled glass mosaic with the community art group of the Shark Bay Art Council. The subject matter was the Seagrass restoration research between the Malgana Aboriginal Corporation and The University of Western Australia. The glass-mosaic panel was revealed at the inaugural Wirriya Jalyanu Seagrass Festival in April 2021 and again during Science Week at the Bush Heritage site of Hamelin Pool Station, in August 2021.
A year later, Sabrina opened her glass art exhibition ‘Blown Away’ during the Windfest in Carnarvon, January 2022. Local recycled glass art was featured. This is the first time the recycled glass-art vessels were used as conversation pieces, centred on conservation topics in marine science, and coastal geomorphology.
In January 2023, the glass exhibition 'Blown Away' was back for a second edition and is now a permanent feature of the Windfest celebrations in Carnarvon.
The Quobba-Gnaraloo coast of the Southern Ningaloo Reef was a focus of the Blown Away exhibition. Here the leaf morphology and cellular patterns of the Posidonia coriacea is interpreted by Sabrina Dowling Giudici, with concept glass art referencing her family’s terrazzo and mosaic heritage.