Artist is blowing new life into UAE’s discarded glass

Glass is one of the easiest items to recycle, yet tonnes of it still ends up in landfills across the UAE.

Anjali Srinivasan turns unwanted glassware into beautiful ornaments in her Dubai workshop ChoChoMa Studios. Reem Mohammed / The National

DUBAI // Artist Anjali Srinivasan is breathing new life into unwanted glass by turning discarded bottles, jars and even window panes into beautiful ornaments.

Glass is one of the easiest items to recycle but tonnes of it still ends up in landfills. Ms Srinivasan hopes to encourage residents to create their own art and stresses the need to act more responsibly with glass waste.

“As someone who works with glass I respect it,” says the graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. “I don’t want it to be rubbish.

“The idea is to give people a better option. We always tell people we upcycle their waste, we make it better.”

Ms Srinivasan’s interest in glassmaking started about two decades ago when she studied at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in her native India.

She was given an assignment to design glass tableware which led her to the town of Firozabad, where glass is made on a large scale.

“The town is actually really scary,” says Ms Srinivasan, 37.

“When I went there the working conditions were abysmal.”

Despite the conditions, she was fascinated with “the beautiful rhythm glass has when it is hot”, and decided to find out more creating with it.

She soon discovered the work of American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly and contacted him to ask for advice about where she should study glassblowing. He wrote back, giving her some benefit of his experience.

It was only when she was enrolled at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University that she realised how important he was as an artist.

“I should have saved that email,” she says.

After an apprenticeship in Sweden and a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Ms Srinivasan returned to India to work as a consultant for the government, helping to re-energise traditional crafts.

She decided last year to set up shop in Dubai in Al Quoz.

It took almost 12 months to design and build her workshop, which she has called ChoChoMa Studios.

She had to hire an electrical engineer to instal the glassblowing and sculpting equipment she uses to create her works.

Her pieces vary from tiles to separation walls and large-scale installations.

She also gives glassmaking classes in basic, one-hour modules to allow students to try relatively simple tasks such as making beads.

People can also learn the more complicated process of blowing glass – no mean feat as the glass has first to be melted in a furnace at 1,200°C before being pliable.

“We are trying to be as flexible as possible with people’s desire to learn,” Ms Srinivasan says.

Tirtha Chatterjee, 28, helped Ms Srinivasan collect 150 glass bottles from Bianca Mozzarella and Co in Jumeirah and other restaurants, turning what was regarded as waste into decorative ice cream scoops and tumblers.

“It is good to see how the trash becomes a treasure,” Ms Chatterjee says.