Estover 2019
I have used sheet glass in my work for years, often to foreground the act of looking. We look so often at the land through the glass lens of a camera and see the resulting photograph on a glass screen. ‘Estover’ offers a moment to reflect upon both how this alters our perceptions of the land and the materiality of glass itself, which we so often handle and look though, but itself remains largely unexamined.
I’m aware of how extractive industries in Cornwall have historically marked the land but also shaped attitudes to the land. My work offers a moment to consider ourselves in relation to these legacies. There were kelp pits along the Helford River used to produce ash for the glass industry. I am fascinated to think that if I could learn to make glass in this way I could look through this glass at the land which produced it, knowing it is a synthesis of the materials that surround me.
http://www.kestlebarton.co.uk/arts-and-events/abigail-reynolds-estover/