The series of sculptures The Fairy Place (I) (2016), (II) (2017), and (III) (2018) stems from sculptural research into a set of glass building blocks designed in 1920 by the German architect Bruno Taut, titled Dandanah – The Fairy Palace. At the intersection of multiple discourses, the game “crystallizes” the utopian aims of modern design and Taut’s belief in glass as a force for social change.

My interest in the game lies in its capacity, as a domestic object and activity, to open a wide field of enquiry into how social and cultural values become embedded in material form. The final shape and chromatic scheme of the sculptures directly reference Taut’s proposals for the fantastical, impossible constructions envisioned for the accompanying glass blocks.

The larger scale of the building blocks, compared to the toy, and the pedestal, that reference a box of a traditional Spanish cake, suggest a construction that exist in between being a small piece of architecture and a fragile, dreamy, and imaginary domestic object that lacks every functionality. The sculpture is the result of a join venture at the blowing glass studio between myself, the students and Robert Wiley, form Vicarte –  Glass and Ceramic for the Arts, at NOVA School of Science and Technology, Caparica Campus, to whom I am deeply grateful.

Artist statement
November 2025