Vergläserung / Vitrification

Excavated soil, sand and stones, melted into glass, suspended above the excavation site, Johanniterkirche Feldkirch, 2026.

In order to engage with the space of the Johanniterkirche and the worldviews associated with it, I excavated parts of the church floor and melted them into glass. The soil, sand and stones – at once historical, liturgical and geological material – underwent a physical, almost alchemical process of transformation in a glassworks in Bavaria. The melting process was deliberately experimental, so that rather than ideal glass forms, unstable, deformed, and partly fragmentary objects were created. The reactions of the material – deformation, burning, transformation, solidification – thus remain visible. Glass has a centuries-long history in churches – as a medium for light, images and narratives. It modulates the light, defines the atmosphere of the space and mediates between inside and outside. At the same time, glass is not exclusively a human product, but a possible state of rock: it is formed in volcanoes, by lightning strikes, through meteorite impacts – even on the Moon and other planets. Whilst church glass is integrated into liturgical and narrative programs, natural and extraterrestrial glass refers to geological and cosmic processes. The same materiality has entirely different contexts and spheres of meaning. Through the medium of glass, the work places the specific location within a cosmic context, connects different states of matter and raises questions of temporality, mutability and fragility.