Glass as Witness is a series of layered glass works that examine how everyday materials act as witnesses, remembering the environmental damage involved in their making. The project’s subject is glass, not as a neutral or transparent surface, but as a material that carries traces of pressure, extraction, and destruction. The project looks at the relationship between large-scale material extraction and microscopic damage.

Silica sand, the primary material used to produce glass, is the second-most-used natural resource globally after water ¹. Its industrial extraction erodes riverbeds, destroys ecosystems, and displaces communities ². These large-scale impacts form the background against which the work is read.

The work consists of images of cracked iPhone glass printed onto glass panels. When layered, these images overlap and interfere, creating depth and visual density, refusing the idea that glass should remain invisible. As light passes through the layers, transparency begins to shift. Some areas remain clear, while others become dense and opaque, slowing the viewer’s gaze and drawing attention to the surface. At close scale, the printed cracks resemble landscapes, fault lines, and excavation marks. Rather than representing mining sites directly, the work allows environmental scarring to reappear through visual resemblance and the behaviour of glass itself.

This investigation questions the assumption of glass as smooth, invisible, and neutral. Glass often promises clarity and cleanliness. Yet, its production depends on extractive processes that leave a lasting environmental impact. The outcome is a set of glass works that refuse disappearance. By making images of damage visible on a material designed to vanish, Glass as Witness reframes glass as a material that remembers, revealing the environmental cost embedded within everyday objects.