Sara Hulkkonen and Miia Lötjönen

Sara Hulkkonen Biography

Sara Hulkkonen shares a sentient material history with glass since 1998. Currently, as a Doctoral Researcher at the Aalto University, Sara explores the embodied, collaborative, and sociomaterial nature of glassblowing. Sara holds a MA in Art Education and a Specialist Vocational Qualification in Glassblowing (Master Glassblower).

Miia Lötjönen Biography

Designer Miia Lötjönen, MA in Contemporary Design, works with a material-driven approach. Originally a glass artisan, she has worked with various materials, though glass remains central to her practice since 2014. Miia’s work delves into material impact and complexity, grounding her thoughtful, evolving approach to contemporary craft.

Photo credit: Sarah Hulkkonen

Paper and Blow

2023/2025

Installation, variable size.

Glass, newspaper, a poem, a video clip

Paper and Blow is an artistic interpretation of a case study in which a practitioner-researcher and a research assistant explore sociomaterial actors in a glassblowing process. This installation allows the research team Hulkkonen & Lötjönen to look at their study in a creative way, and further, to communicate the case to a wider community. The parts of the installation presented here are: 1. A video-clip from a longer video documentation in which the two glassblowers are making the glass vase. 2. The glass vase that is under making in the video. 3. A wet newspaper materializes the documented video sequence in which the glass is formed with the newspaper tool. 4. A narrative poem describing the sociomateriality seen on the video.

To investigate the embodied, collaborative, and sociomaterial nature of glassblowing is an ongoing doctoral project conducted by Sara Hulkkonen in the research area of design.