Use of waste material in glass artwork production

Developments in the social, economic, political and cultural fields throughout history have accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and caused great changes in production-consumption relations. The more people produce, the more they begin to consume. As a result, almost many of the world's clean resources have been depleted and the number of waste has increased visibly. With this visibility, "Waste" has attracted the attention of many artists since the 1900s and has been among the current art trends. Consumption objects, which started their journey in art as "ready-made objects", continued their existence in art after the modern period as "waste objects" with the changes experienced in the historical process. Therefore, the way in which the concept of "waste" is handled by artists has varied in the historical process. Within the scope of the thesis, this process is divided into two different parts and discussed with examples of artists. The issue of waste evaluation; it is a trend that exists in all fields of art and there are many groups and artists who use waste materials to turn them into concepts. Waste objects in the field of glass art; It transforms into a value that needs to be addressed and contributes to the artist's possibilities of expression. However, artists who produce works in this field use waste in two types according to the design they will create; they create works either by directly introducing waste glass into the production process or by integrating the waste objects that fill the functional process with the subjective structure of the glass. Regardless of the type of waste used in the field of glass art, it contributes by enriching the expression language of the glass work. Therefore, the different uses of waste in this area create two different effects on the work in terms of both "form" and "meaning". These different effects are also discussed in detail under the sub-headings in the content of the thesis, together with the examples of artists. The concept of "waste" is a multiple field with visible/invisible elements. It exists both physically and conceptually in an invisible form in memory. Waste is generally undesirable or needs recycling. While the physical ones can be restored with certain transformation models, the ones in the memory can be transformed by one's own intervention depending on the awareness of the person, and they are harmonized with the body. Within the scope of the study, wastes were handled physically and conceptually. Family heirloom objects from the past or in the form of waste that fill its functional process are integrated with the original structure of glass by being fictionalized with memory wastes that make up my personal approach. In the shaping of the glass in personal applications, a technique selection was made that reflects the fiction of the waste in memory, and the glass models were shaped with the "Core Casting" technique. The "Core Casting" technique is a forming method in which negative spaces are created inside the glass. The glass used in the applications represents the memory and the constructed memory wastes are also designed to remain inside the glass. Thanks to the transparent feature of the glass, the installations are visible inside the glass in which they are positioned, but they display a mysterious stance that sets boundaries around it. In this way, waste objects that have completed their functional processes, or the invisible wastes that we have accumulated in our memory, are handled with artistic productions and presented as a contemporary language of expression in glass art. KEYWORDS: Waste, Glass, Art, Recycling, Contemporary Art