We're taught that broken things should be fixed, restored to their original state. But stained glass offers a different model—wholeness that only exists through the brokenness of many parts. I print photographs on glass, shatter them with hammers, then reconstruct the fragments using traditional stained glass techniques of copper foil and solder, treating breaking and repair as parallel acts of transformation.
In my "Twice Broken Glass" series, I explore different paths to fragmentation by shattering one pane of glass through violent impact while precisely cutting another to mirror those breaks, then repairing both identically. This practice, which draws on the Kabbalistic concept of shattering of vessels, reveals how we attempt to mend damage in the same ways, creating cycles that both heal and perpetuate harm. In my photographic glass portraits, I turn this investigation toward self-representation: I print intimate portraits on plate glass, ritualistically break them with a hammer, then force myself to sit with what remains—reconstructing new, stranger selves from what's been broken beyond repair.
My public works scale these material investigations into monumental optical devices. "To Reflect Everything"—a seven-foot mirrored sphere installed in public spaces—is a scale recreation of the 1986 satellite Ajisai, which closely resembles a disco ball. Drawing on the disco ball's history as a symbol of queer sanctuary and transformation, I designed the sculpture's reflective surfaces to fracture viewers and environment into multiplied, incomplete reflections. The black gaps between mirror panels reference queer spaces lost, creating dialogues between what we see, what reflects back, and how we understand ourselves within shared public space.
Throughout my practice, I treat photographs as physical material rather than documentation—something to be broken, manipulated, and reconstructed into three-dimensional forms. Through this fracturing, I explore how our lives and selves move in multiple directions simultaneously, how some breaking creates entirely new forms rather than damaged versions of what came before. We carry visible scars of our past incarnations while becoming something stranger and more authentic.