In 2006, Kindle collaborated with eight Midlands-based artists on a combined-art project that celebrated the history of Chance Bro’s Glassworks, Smethwick, Birmingham. The installation/performance was built on the sixth floor of the disused glass factory and was our adaptation of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

The Great Exhibition had been held in the original Crystal Palace which Chance Bro’s had glazed, and in it were housed Britain’s proudest inventions in a showcase of the Industrial Revolution. In our version, the characters themselves were the exhibits, alongside the artists’ commissioned works, in a bittersweet salute to the industrial powerhouse that was Birmingham, from the graveyard of one of its forgotten buildings.

‘The glasshouse is not conventional theatre’ Ciaran Ryan, BBC

Collaborating artists:

Iris Bertz – Willow Sculpture

Geoff Broadway – Light Installation

Steve Davies – Film

Keir Williams – TV/Film/Sound

Annie Mahtani – Electro-acoustic composition

Lynette Clee – Photography

Kimberly Trusty – Poetry

Jerome Harrington – Glass Book Display