Anna Carlgren

Anna makes non-technical instruments, which multiply, enlarge, reduce, absorb, and partly or fully deform the environment. She uses (and misuses) glass and its optical qualities in order to create a visual play.

She works with the effects produced by light in combination with glass. Recent work consists of sculptures with trompe l’œil and optical phenomena as a vital component that are included in a number of museum collections worldwide like Nationalmuseum in Stockholm Sweden, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam Netherlands, and Corning Museum of Glass, New York.

In 2003-2004 Anna was awarded Le Grand Atelier des Sculpteurs de l’Académie Royal des Beaux Arts in Paris for the series Optical Phenomena as Architectonic Elements in which visitors and their experiences of space are central to the work. Through minimal interventions in public space the impossible is made visible, though sometimes just for a moment.

Anna Carlgren has her own gallery in Stockholm together with a group of Swedish, Danish and Japanese artists. And she is currently working on establishing a technique and material library for glass which will be accessible for artists and researchers worldwide.

Anna is the President of The Glass Academy and co-founder of The Free Glass foundation, a glass laboratory for artists, designers and architects with studios in Amsterdam.

Sources of inspiration
European Traditions: Anna explores and collects old traditional European glassmaking techniques. The question is what meaning and value these traditions may have in the future of architectural glass.

Technical innovation: New technical inventions and possibilities have led glass art onto new paths many times. What technical innovations are happening right now and in what way do they affect glass in architecture?

Art: Anna wants to give glass and glass in architecture input from unexpected places. She takes a look at the common ground glass has with other cultural expressions like painting, sculpture, architecture, design, film and music.

Anna Carlgren co-initiated an international glass conference on these topics.

Education
· Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (NL) B.F.A. and M.F.A
· Orrefors Glass School (SE)
· Goldsmiths' College, Amsterdam (NL)

Member
· Artists' Council, The Glassfactory, Boda (SE)