Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Susan Edgerley is the 2019 winner of the Saidye Bronfman Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Tomi Grgicevic.
Production of the Canada Council for the Arts. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
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Transcript:
Glass is, for me, a poetic material. I’ve never really been attracted to making objects with glass. I’ve very much been attracted to using glass as a means of expression, often in very different ways from one group of work to the other. I work in many different techniques and each technique speaks to a certain idea that I’ve been trying to express at that time in a series of work.
All those series are connected through the material, but even though each one appears to be different, there is an underlying thematic that pulls them through. When I work with glass, I feel like I’m writing a story. It’s very much like you would write with a pen, but for me, it’s writing with a material. A lot of my inspiration is originally from the natural world. When I find something in nature, often I’ll just pick it up and look at it. The more I see what’s in front of me in this small objects that I found on the ground, the more I feel the sense of connectedness to the world at large. The more it inspires me to think of broader things.
The past few years, I’ve been working on a specific series of work called Light and Shadow. I’ve found that juxtaposition and that duality very interesting. Using these immaterial nuances of light and shadow has elevated my work into an ethereal domain that I find very fascinating. The shadow becomes like a drawing to the glass. It really started me thinking about how the invisible could be made visible. That relationship has always been, in a very fundamental way, at the heart of my work.
For me, the quality of glass being unlimited really responded to something very fundamental in myself. I’ve never really liked to have limits; I don’t like to be defined as one thing or another. I really feel that I am one element of a larger whole and that really also is what I’m now reflecting in my work. And that makes me feel good.
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Susan Edgerley is the 2019 winner of the Saidye Bronfman Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Tomi Grgicevic.
Production of the Canada Council for the Arts. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
Glass is, for me, a poetic material. I’ve never really been attracted to making objects with glass. I’ve very much been attracted to using glass as a means of expression, often in very different ways from one group of work to the other. I work in many different techniques and each technique speaks to a certain idea that I’ve been trying to express at that time in a series of work.
All those series are connected through the material, but even though each one appears to be different, there is an underlying thematic that pulls them through. When I work with glass, I feel like I’m writing a story. It’s very much like you would write with a pen, but for me, it’s writing with a material. A lot of my inspiration is originally from the natural world. When I find something in nature, often I’ll just pick it up and look at it. The more I see what’s in front of me in this small objects that I found on the ground, the more I feel the sense of connectedness to the world at large. The more it inspires me to think of broader things.
The past few years, I’ve been working on a specific series of work called Light and Shadow. I’ve found that juxtaposition and that duality very interesting. Using these immaterial nuances of light and shadow has elevated my work into an ethereal domain that I find very fascinating. The shadow becomes like a drawing to the glass. It really started me thinking about how the invisible could be made visible. That relationship has always been, in a very fundamental way, at the heart of my work.
For me, the quality of glass being unlimited really responded to something very fundamental in myself. I’ve never really liked to have limits; I don’t like to be defined as one thing or another. I really feel that I am one element of a larger whole and that really also is what I’m now reflecting in my work. And that makes me feel good.
