Tomoko Matsumiya’s Broken Glass Project

But it’s good to find oneself in a large space with some breathing room, both as an artist or a guest.The artist who opened her studio for visitors this week is Tomoko Matsumiya. She’s in the second year of a master degree program at a Tokyo art university and has been working in glass sculptures, installations and performance art for last couple of years. Her studio looks like a research lab in gemology, but there are no gems to be found. Tomoko Matsumiya uses broken glass to make “decorative objects”. She breaks clear glass, whatever her visitors bring or she decides to transform, selects usable pieces and makes sculptures out of them. One of the sculptures that can be worn, ready to be tried on, is a crown that the artist also wears for her performances.

In addition to assembling glass pieces into sculptures, she also displays them labeled like stone or other non-organic specimens in lab-like wood and glass cases. The works are very delicate but ironically, being made of sharp glass, dangerous, and are to be handled in complete concentration.

More than decorative objects, Tomoko Matsumiya is interested in the fictional creatures that could be “re-crystalized” out of the broken glass. She assembles small, imaginary creatures, seemingly at various stages of development or positions. They appear as sparkly sea creatures that have crystalized out of salt.

The process of making the sculpture seems tedious and eccentric, but the results are astonishingly beautiful, almost glamorous, if one forgets the broken glass they came from. The trick is, the artist does not want the viewer to to forget it. If you bring your own glass at scheduled times this week, she will make you an “object”