Welcome to the Glass Age

146 of good practice, however, do exist and could be used as a model for the future. The Kitengela Glass Studio, based in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration with researcher Julie Ross, ran a series of funded workshops for local women from Kibera in 2018. The workshops introduced transferable art glass skills such as glass mosaic and bead making, to empower local women through glass making. Transglass, based in Guatemala City, in Central America, was originally set up by Emma Woffenden and Tord Boontje in 2005. It is a micro- enterprise that creates recycled glass products made by young people who are taught the transferable skills of glass cutting and polishing. Both of these glass studios highlight the potential that glass has to provide a vital source of income to vulnerable, low-income communities by offering them a route that tackles poverty and unemployment through a micro-enterprise driven by glass making. There are also systemic issues to consider, in caste system countries such as India, Bangladesh and Nepal where glass making is seen as a low status, male dominated profession. People are born into castes and carry out work that has always been carried out by their family. The caste system has had a major impact on glass making in these countries, however, it is changing and in busier urban areas non-caste glass workers are allowed to work in glass, whether or not this Figure 9.6. Jessamy Kelly, Waste Glass Landscape, Recycled glass, Bombay Sapphire Gin Bottle (lost wax cast, kiln cast glass, diamond cut and finished), 2020, 18 x 8.5 x 48cm. Source: Jessamy Kelly.