ACQUAFLORA
Borosilicate Glass Sculptures
Material | Borosilicate Glass
Dimensions | Please refer to catalogue
Date of Creation | December 2025
Photos | Elie Abi Hanna
Flameworker | Boutros Harb
“Aquaflora” is a series of glass organisms that exist in the threshold between flower and reef, leaf and polyp, petal and anemone. Rigid borosilicate tubes soften in the flame and yield to gravity, folding into fluid forms that ripple, flare, and twist as if alive. In this state between control and surrender, the glass reveals its true temperament: a molten intelligence that resists perfection and insists on becoming something organic.
These pieces emerge as hybrid species - botanical in silhouette, marine in movement. Their surfaces undulate like jellyfish bells, their edges pulse like nudibranch frills, and their contours scatter light like nocturnal corals. They cast water-like shadows that transform stillness into performance, offering a corporeal reading of underwater ecosystems. Their silhouettes move even when the objects do not. In this play of reflection and refraction lies a reminder that fragility is also a form of strength, and beauty often emerges from the edge of unpredictability and the unexpected.
Created in collaboration with Boutros Sawaya, Lebanon's only remaining flame-worker, this collection extends Tessa's decade-long commitment to traditional glass craft. After ten years collaborating with Murano glassblowers in Venice, she curated a glass exhibition with Samer Alameen in October 2025 at the Abroyan Factory in Beirut, to revive Lebanon's glassblowing heritage, supporting the last local artisans and creating space for knowledge-sharing among artisans, designers, and the public. This collection furthers that mission, with proceeds directly supporting Beirut Art Center, a nonprofit dedicated to art research and cultural practices in Lebanon.
The anatomy of these pieces suggests a Mediterranean ecology shaped by ancestral craft, revealing the tension between fragility and resilience that echoes the precarious state of marine life and artisanship today. These works are not simply objects; they are bodies caught between fluidity and fossilization, beauty and threat.
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