Friday, July 18, 2025 – Monday, October 13, 2025

This exhibition focuses on around 50 works by 21 artists, from the approximately 600 items in the Toyama Glass Art Museum collection, introducing the “lives” expressed in each work.

Life, live and words of similar ilk have multiple meanings, encompassing everything from the force permeating all living things, to those same living things themselves, day-to-day existence, and bodies/minds in motion They refer to the existence and condition of those of us alive right now, while simultaneously serving as vast themes that have engaged countless artists since antiquity.

Note also that 2025 marks ten years since the opening of the Toyama Glass Art Museum. The year 2015 seems at once remote, and like yesterday, and though much of that time has been spent going about our uneventful day-to-day lives, it has also been characterized by encounters with major disasters such as a global pandemic and earthquakes, and the outbreak of new wars. The environment and situation around us have changed with breathtaking speed, and still we continue to be confronted by new events and watershed moments that raise questions about the state of “life,” and its importance.

We hope that the expressions of life and lives seen in the works here, their delicate yet powerful forms, and their visual and auditory shaking and stirring of emotion and memory, will encourage viewers to cast a fresh eye over both themselves and the familiar things around them, and join each other in musing on, and sharing, ways to live in and navigate unsettling times.

Artists

Kate Baker, Howard Ben Tré, Æsa Björk, Shige Fujishiro, Fujita Kyohei, Gonjo Mafune, Dafna Kaffeman, Marta Klonowska, Kosogawa Runa, Stanislav Libenský＆Jaroslava Brychtová, Harvey K. Littleton, Mária Lugossy, Alena Matějka, Javier Pérez, Kirstie Rea, Sasaki Rui, Ivana Šrámková, Lino Tagliapietra,Takahashi Yoshihik, Dalia Truskaitė, Ann Wolff

The work Shield II made in collaboration with Tinna Thorsteinsdóttir will be on display during the exhibition.

Shield II won the grand prize at the Toyama International Glass Exhibition 2018.
The making of the Shield I-III was supported by S12 Galleri og Verksted.
My participation in the Lives exhibition was supported by
the Toyama Glass Art Museum and UD – Norwegian Crafts.