13th International Blown Glass Symposium in Lviv: Traditions, Innovations, and Prospects

Abstract

The 13th International Blown Glass Symposium took place in Lviv on October 5–15, 2025, bringing together nearly two dozen artists from Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, the United States, and Ukraine. This article continues the exploration of this international event as a unique phenomenon in the cultural and artistic life of the country, as well as its direct impact on processes and tendencies within the international studio glass movement. Founded in 1989, during the Soviet period, the Lviv symposium preserved certain traditions in its organizational structure, program content, and technological approaches to working with glass furnaces up until the beginning of the war. It is no coincidence that the Lviv forum is regarded as the world’s only uninterrupted and longest-running symposium dedicated to glass artists. At the same time, the realities of martial law have necessitated significant adjustments to its implementation, affecting not only organizational aspects but also the artistic outcomes of the participants. The article examines the creative features of the works presented at the final exhibition of the thirteenth symposium. It analyzes the characteristic differences between the pieces produced by foreign artists during the event and those created by Ukrainian participants in their home studios. Particular emphasis is placed on the latest technological upgrades introduced in the glassblowing workshop of the Glass Art Department at the Lviv National Academy of Arts, which significantly enhanced the quality of the works produced during the symposium. The study also outlines the program structure of the event and the specificities of its realization under wartime conditions. It is noted that the symposium was carried out with the financial support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, a factor that considerably improved the overall quality of its organizational processes. Importantly, the 13th International Blown Glass Symposium in Lviv also included a series of initiatives aimed at supporting the rehabilitation of veterans of the Ukrainian–Russian war and their families – activities that will continue in the near future.