Pilot 'A World of Sand'
— Oerol Festival
In 2017 we launched the pilot for our project 'To See a World in a Grain of Sand' on the island of Terschelling at Oerol festival. Here we embarked on a journey to map the island by turning its own local sand into glass! Through this collaborative process that involved both the local people and festival goers, we created a connection with the island that helped us understand the true meaning of the theme, Sense of Place. From the shore of the Wadden Sea to the shore of the North Sea, we collected sand from beaches, dunes, forest, polder and dikes that yielded a wonderful array of glass that we were able to make on site.
Both locals and festival goers and were invited to collect sand from around the island and deliver it to the Atelier NL beach container. The sand was then fired in our kiln at 1500˚C and melted into glass pools in the bottom of handmade porcelain cups. Our goal was to map the island and visualize this particular place through the varying colours hidden in the sand. Terschelling served as a perfect place for the experimentation of this project as its land mass is almost entirely sand and created by both natural and human-made factors. By melting the sand into glass, we can see the different mineral and chemical components of each place, thereby giving us an understanding of the geological history that makes the island what it is today!
The first batch of glass samples from the island
With our portable kiln we were able to make glass on site!
A close up image of the Terschelling glass
To learn more visit: aworldofsand.com