00:00So my name is Janine Crisley and I'm Festival Director for the International Festival of Glass.
00:06And you're here today at the moment in the British Glass Biennale, which is our flagship exhibition,
00:12which is full of artists from the UK, the best artists in the UK doing contemporary glass.
00:17And there is some amazing work here. We've got 143 artists represented.
00:22So although it's the British Glass Biennale, a lot of the artists are living in the UK
00:29but coming from different nationalities, different places.
00:31So it's a really exciting mix, very creative, very diverse.
00:35Lots of different techniques, lots of colour this year.
00:38So what we noticed two years ago, because the festival is every two years,
00:42is that artists, because of the Covid impact, were creating very small works
00:47because they couldn't get out of their studios.
00:49This time you're going to see fantastic big pieces as well.
00:52So we've got everything from tiny little beads to some whopping great stained glass panels
00:57and they look amazing.
00:58And there's all kinds of workshops and demonstrations that people can watch and get involved in.
01:03That's right, isn't it?
01:04So the festival goes over four days.
01:06We've got artists from China and Japan.
01:09We've got our Hong Kong with America throughout Europe.
01:13They are here demonstrating, showing you what they can do.
01:16And we've also got workshops where you yourself can have a go at doing it, which is really great.
01:21That's from families right through to people who might be professional artists
01:25who just want to learn a new skill.
01:26So there's something for everyone here.
01:28So although we're here at the Ruskin Glass Centre and there's lots going on here as the main festival hub,
01:33there's also other venues taking part as well.
01:36So there's activities going on at the Established Glass Museum,
01:39at the Red House Glass Museum, at the Lace Guild.
01:43There's an exhibition of student graduate work at General Office.
01:47And there's a church involved as well.
01:50So there's lots of things happening over the whole weekend.
01:54It's going to be fabulous.
01:55One of the special things is on Saturday night where we've got a huge great pyrotechnic display going on
02:01by a company called Walk the Plank.
02:03They did our finale in the very first festival,
02:05so we've invited them back as part of the past, present, future theme
02:09to actually create our Saturday night spectacular.
02:12So there's still tickets available for that.
02:16Hello. Welcome to the Red House Glass Cone.
02:18Let's take a look inside.
02:23Wow, Mark, this is huge, isn't it?
02:36I mean, it looks big from the outside, but when you come in, it's like the TARDIS, isn't it?
02:39Yes, it definitely feels bigger now.
02:42We've got quite a lot of space in here.
02:45Yeah, because there was quite a big gantry and stuff in the middle previously, wasn't there?
02:49Yeah, so it's all been taken out and we've now got quite a big open space in here.
02:53Definitely worth coming down to check.
02:55Cool. And the furnace is hoping to return at some point, so there's a bit of glass blowing.
03:00But the idea is to kind of keep this open space nice and versatile and appreciate the cone more, I guess.
03:06Yeah, so it means that we can have some visiting exhibits.
03:09We can do a lot with the space.
03:11The hot glass studio was just in one of these corners here.
03:15It's been closed off for a bit, but we're hoping to have it open again very, very soon.
03:20Great, so thank you, Mark.
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