Sandcast glass. Launched at Melbourne Design Fair in May 2023.
Yuwaalaraay wirringgaa Lucy Simpson is Creative Director and Principal Designer/Maker behind Gaawaa Miyay, a First Nations design studio inspired by country, relationships and notions of continuity and exchange.
The glass Dhanggal takes its form from the freshwater mussel shell. Handmade by artisans at Canberra Glassworks, each piece is individually cast using an 80-year-old shell collected from a dry riverbed within the Murray Darling Basin, on Yuwaalaraa Country. This shell was one of more than 2 million Dhanggal that perished between 2017 – 2020 at the height of the NSW drought. Lucy Simpson sees each individual shell as a recorder of time and place, specifically connected with extreme events of fire and water.
Ranging from translucent to opaque, black to white, pure to gritty, this subtle yet striking collection has been designed to evoke a sense of natural balance within the order of all things in the living world.
Available through our online shop. Stockists include Museum of Contemporary Art, CRAFT Victoria, Australian Design Centre and Art Gallery of Western Australia.
