The experimental collection BEYOND GLASS, created in collaboration with Lasvit and the platform Flowers for Slovakia, brings to Designblok in Prague an distinctive concept that redefines the materiality of glass by transforming personal authors' experiences into conceptual design objects.
Photography: Adam Šakový / Beyond Glass Archive
Ten emerging designers from Czechia and Slovakia (Barbora S. Babocká, Petr Brancuský, Ondřej Čižmář, Barbora Hagarová, Sára Kordová, Karolína Kučerová, Alexander Kupko, Adam Trup, Dávid Valovič, Klára Valušková) were selected to explore the beauty of Slovakia through the five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—each creating a glass object rooted in individual experience. The result is a collection that is both tactile and poetic, existing in physical form and in digital space. These objects are more than aesthetic creations; they are sensory archives that preserve fleeting impressions, evoke emotion, and invite the viewer to feel, remember, touch, and connect. This collection speaks not only through form but through feeling, a testament to the enduring power of human perception even in the age of artificial intelligence and accelerating change.
BEYOND GLASS is born from a desire to understand beauty not as something fixed, systematic, or ornamental but as a lived experience that is subjective, sensory, and shaped by our unique backgrounds. Through glass we attempt to make ephemeral impressions visible: the echo of a familiar place, the impression of a big world through the eyes of a child, the sound of a mysterious nature, the warmth of a shared moment.
Photography: Adam Šakový
BEYOND GLASS, the platform’s fifth collection, opens a dialogue between the conceptual and the sensory, the subjective and the structural. In partnership with the renowned glass house Lasvit and the Institute of Design at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, the project aims to raise awareness about the glassmaking tradition, revive interest in glassblowing craft in Slovakia, and bring a new conceptual perspective on the glass medium.
“The theme transforms personal memories of Slovakia into sensations materialized in glass forms that carry both personal and collective resonance. Through design, beauty becomes more than what we see – it becomes what we remember, what we touch, and what we carry forward, always reaching beyond,” says curator Petra Hurai about the collection.
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FLOWERS FOR SLOVAKIA
This Slovak context builds on the vision of the Flowers for Slovakia collaboration platform, founded by Lars Kemper and Peter Olah in 2010, which sought to share beauty through contemporary craft-based design. Its guiding idea—“to give a flower is to share beauty”, resonates through earlier collections such as Handle with Care, Lost and Found, Pass It On, and Taste My Story, all of which were presented as travelling exhibition projects at international design weeks between 2010 and 2022.
More about the project Beyond Glass: IG Beyond Glass
More about the platform Flowers for Slovakia: https://f4sk.com/ IG Flowers for Slovakia
Contact: info@f4sk.com
More about LASVIT: https://www.lasvit.com/ IG Lasvit
Photography:Adam Šakový @_isonative, Petra Hurai @theshamrockgreen
PRESS PHOTO: FULL PRESSKIT LINK
DURATION: 8. 10. - 12. 10. 2025
LOCATION: Designblok – Prague International Design Festival, Křižík Pavilions, Prague Exhibition Grounds, Na Výstavišti 67, Prague 7, https://www.designblok.cz/
ORGANIZER: Institute of Design, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Slovak University of Technology, Slovakia
PRESS CONTACT: michala.lipkova@stuba.sk / petra.huraiova@stuba.sk
PRODUCTION: Petra Hurai, Michala Lipková, Eva Polgáry
CURATOR: Petra Hurai
EXHIBITION DESIGN: Filip Maukš, Petra Hurai, Michala Lipková
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Martin Czeller
FEATURED AUTHORS: Barbora S. Babocká, Petr Brancuský, Ondřej Čižmář, Barbora Hagarová, Sára Kordová, Karolína Kučerová, Alexander Kupko,Adam Trup, Dávid Valovič, Klára Valušková
THIS PROJECT WAS SUPPORTED BY PUBLIC FUNDING PROVIDED BY SLOVAK ARTS COUNCIL.
