Tanja Pak

Tanja Pak was born in Slovenia. She obtained her BA degree in industrial design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana in 1994 and her master degree at the Royal College of Art (Ceramics and Glass) in London in 1996. She has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, since 2001, where she heads the Glass and Ceramics Course. In 2013 she was invited to the Bullseye R&E Center in Portland, Oregon to work on implementation of kiln glass processes in design and presented the project and the conceptual process at BeCon Conference in June 2013. Since 2005 she has led the Glesia Gallery, committed to the presentation of new works by contemporary sculptors. In both 2008 and 2009 she received the Red Dot Design Honorable Mention Award, and in 2011 she received the Design of the Year Award in Slovenia. Her works have been published in a variety of prominent international publications.

“Recently, my work has become an expression of “reveries”, influenced a lot by readings of Bachelard, Arvo Part’s music, and mostly by my search for immensity and silence in the vastness of the desert and the depths of the sea. When I seek for Whiteness, that so much describes my work, I think of breathing, of inhale, and exhale, and floating in the “Inbetweeness”. I would like to continue exploring this concept, and develop a large-scale installation, including modified multiples of kiln formed glass pieces, or/and modules of kiln formed pieces. I want to express the fragility, of life, of soul, and the hidden inner world of a self as well as the layers of consensuses and perceiving, and the barriers between inner and outer world, that work like half-translucent mirrors.”