Journey Through Glass


Journey Through Glass 

Our story begins in Tierra del Fuego… 

Imagine, if you can, driving in a dusty old pickup through an endless rocky plain dotted here and there with patches of mata negra, the heavens above ready to burst open and release a great flood. The wind rages against your vehicle forcing it to zigzag down the ripio.

All of a sudden, from nowhere comes crashing down upon the windshield a stone causing it to explode. The view of the landscape is now blocked as your gaze becomes transfixed on a maze of cobwebs that have replaced the once intact glass. 

And so you ‘rediscover’ glass…

Where just moments before there was an every day object that didn’t warrant a second glance, there is now a mesmerizing display resplendid with brilliance and symmetry against a stormy sky. 

The truck stops and from inside the vehicle you begin to take photographs of this ‘explosion’ of glass shining against the light. Not a mere photo for an eventual insurance claim but a photo that would represent the birth of an idea...

That evening in a posada hidden behind a thick barrier of poplar trees, where you chose to spend the night, you find yourself staring into your beer glass. A glass like any other, but somehow the light reflecting against the amber liquid seems to transpose this object into a kind of lantern. You begin to note the varying thickness of the glass from the rim to the bottom and how this varying thickness plays with the light in unique ways. You take out your camera and begin taking pictures of your beer glass from various angles soliciting amused glances from the people around you. 

Your ‘rediscovery’ has become a journey, a journey through glass....

Without even realizing it you find yourself photographing ashtrays in the bars of Punta Arenas, pub windows of Aberdeen, glass doors of airports around the world, reflections through car windows of Luanda, old bottles in farmsteads in the Apennine mountains, ‘every day’ glasses at your friends place in Milan……. You discover, interpret and reflect on the symmetry, shape, colour, tone of glass, of all kinds of glass, every day objects. Your new passion for photographing glass attracts bewildered stares, amused looks and even smirks from onlookers friends and family. 

This attention does not sway you as you have embarked on a journey. Like Alice you are journeying through the looking glass to a magical world whose existence you had never imagined. 

Along your journey your creativity grows and matures. You become more selective in your art. Your project evolves and through your photography you capture the complex symmetry in the glass of La Défense, or in the windows of an oil refinery in Bolivia. You interpret the world through a porthole of a ship, through the windows of a retirement home, and more...

Time passes, years pass, and people continue not to see what you see so clearly through the glass. Your project has taken shape and form. Through glass, the shapes, transparency, and symmetry in the photographs you have been collecting act as a testimony to your path, your work, your journey. These photographs are a representation of the glass you have met, discovered, explored, interpreted, reinvented and torn from the indifference of every day life. 

The journey continues....

I have selected more than 900 unedited photos representing a creative project spanning over …..3 years. In my photos I attempt to express my ‘Journey Through Glass’, from the explosion of a windshield in Tierra del Fuego to the perfect symmetry found of the windows of a Paris airport. 

I am currently seeking a sponsor interested in financing the publication of my work, all or in part. All of my photographs are available for viewing on this Site, but they can also be ordered in a 50cmX70cm (20” X 28”) format. The pictures will be signed and stamped by the author. I may be contacted via the following:

giulianogennari@libero.it
giulianogennari1948@gmail.com

Giuliano Gennari.