michèle vanvlasselaer

Discursive Landscape (2024) is a design - not realised - for a stained-glass window, conceived for a residence by architect Berlage in Amsterdam. The installation consists of movable panels, acting as both an optical and conceptual bridge between interior and exterior space. It is not a passive boundary but an active mediator—a lens that not only transforms perception but also redefines the way meaning is assigned to the world beyond.

The composition plays with layers of transparency, colour, and abstract forms that oscillate between recognition and estrangement. The glass filters the light, fragmenting and reshaping the external environment into a shifting, ephemeral tableau—a landscape in flux. Pedestrians passing by, the silhouette of a windmill, drifting clouds, and the interplay of tree shadows are distilled into a layered impression where the boundaries between reality and reflection dissolve. Simultaneously, the glass is not merely a conduit for light but a material presence in its own right. It functions not only as a window but as a projection surface upon which light choreographs its own performance. As the sun moves across the sky, fields of colour spill onto floors and walls, transforming the space into a painting in motion.

This work aligns with Miwon Kwon’s discourse on site-specificity, in which place is not understood as a fixed, geographical entity but as an evolving relationship between materiality, context, and perception. Discursive Landscape is not merely an object embedded within architecture; it generates meaning through the dynamic interplay of light, space, and viewer. The work also resonates with Kazuo Saito’s concept of the ‘total landscape,’ which posits that no site exists in isolation but is instead part of broader ecological and urban systems. The stained-glass window does not simply alter the interior environment; it actively engages with the rhythms of the city and the shifting qualities of natural light that continuously redefine its presence.

The title Discursive Landscape reflects the idea that space is never neutral—it is always shaped through perception and interpretation. This stained-glass work invites a heightened awareness of seeing, in which the boundary between inside and outside is no longer fixed but becomes a fluid, ever-shifting dialogue.

Thus, the artwork is not merely a window onto the world but a world unto itself—a landscape that resists definition, continually reshaped in the interplay of light and gaze.

(2024)
16 × 20 cm — mouth-blown glass, metal frame

Fragment 1 marks the beginning of a series in which glass detaches itself from architecture and becomes an autonomous medium of light and perception. Suspended between two metal frames, the small mouth-blown panel hovers freely in space — not a window, but a body of light.

Its modest scale invites slowness. Air bubbles and fine fissures refract the light, revealing a world seen through delay and distortion. The act of looking becomes tactile; perception turns into an embodied attention. The glass shows not what lies behind it, but its own process of becoming.

Wherever it stands, the object generates its own site — a temporary constellation of light, space, and gaze. In this sense, Fragment 1 resonates with Miwon Kwon’s notion of the displaced site: a work that creates place through presence rather than attachment.

It marks a shift in my practice — from architectural to autonomous, from fixed to ephemeral — and prefigures a series of works where light itself carries the promise of what is yet to appear.

HETEROTOPIA

(Marche-en-Famenne, 2022)
425 × 260 cm — mouth-blown glass, painted and curved, lead.

Stained-glass window for the wedding hall in Château Jadot (commissioned by the City of Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium).

Heterotopia was created for the wedding hall of the historic Château Jadot in southern Belgium. The title refers to Michel Foucault’s notion of the heterotopia — a space apart, where reality is suspended and another order briefly emerges.

The curved stained-glass window envelops the viewer. Through its scale, colour, and curvature, it generates a bodily experience of space: looking becomes spatial, and light seems to unfold from within. The work suggests a parklandscape that does not exist; behind the glass lies only a red brick wall. Perception itself becomes the subject — the act of seeing what is not there.

A narrow vertical strip of unpainted glass interrupts the illusion, offering a moment of breath and transparency. Across the rest of the surface, layers of colour — violet, rose, green and yellow — create shifting atmospheres that change with the light.

Heterotopia transforms the wedding hall into a luminous in-between space: a temporary world of reflection and suspension, where architecture and perception merge into a shared, altered reality.

Photo credits: © Lieven Van Den Heede, © Tim Costima, © Michèle Vanvlasselaer

Stained glass window for the King and Queen of Belgium (commissioned by the city of Marche-en-Famenne).
Mouth blown glass, size of the window: 32 cm x 23 cm (2021).

Arc : mouth blown glass, size of the window: 205 cm x 60 cm (2019).

(2019)

Mouth-blown glass — 60 × 90 cm + 20 × 90 cm

Commissioned by architect Hilde Daem

Bariolé emerged from a dialogue with architect Hilde Daem about light and the shaping of space. Conceived for her private workspace, the piece reconsiders what a stained-glass window can be: not an architectural fixture, but an autonomous surface through which light defines its own architecture.

The mouth-blown bariolet glass, with its water-like shades of blue and translucent whites, filters and fragments the view. The gaze slows down; perception becomes tactile. Reflections drift across curtains and walls, tracing the movement of light as it redraws the room throughout the day.

Rather than framing an exterior world, Bariolé creates an interior landscape of attention — a quiet balance between transparency and opacity, presence and concealment. It is both a collaboration and a meditation: a shared exploration of how light can reimagine space, and how glass can exist as a medium of perception rather than enclosure.

Photo in situ © Hilde Daem, Photo's in art studio Michèle Vanvlasselaer © Michèle Vanvlasselaer

Designs for stained glass windows in mouth blown glass and reclaimed glass donated to the glass-bank.

During an artist-residency of 6 months in Gaza, Palestine in 2018, I have set up a glass-bank. The glass-bank is a place where I collect broken glass pieces and stories.

PIANO PHASE

(Antwerp, 2016)
140 × 115 × 85 cm
Created for a private residence of musicians

Piano Phase takes its title and rhythm from Steve Reich’s composition for two pianos (1967). The work translates the idea of phase shifting — two identical patterns slowly drifting out of sync — into the movement of light and perception.

Across the glass surface, a single abstract form repeats in shifting tones and textures. The rhythm unfolds from the centre, expanding left and right like a pulse in space. Toward the top, the glass opens into transparency, allowing light to enter freely and fragment the surrounding view. What lies outside appears dissolved; seeing becomes a way of listening.

Rather than illustrating music, Piano Phase explores its temporal condition. As in Reich’s score, perception emerges from the smallest variations — from the pulse of time made visible. The window acts as a visual score, where rhythm and refraction compose a slow choreography of light.

Within my practice, Piano Phase marks a passage from the spatial to the temporal, from structure to experience. It reflects a growing interest in how light can behave like sound: rhythmic, fragile, and always in motion.

Hereyou can listen to the wonderful interpretation of Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase” by the fabulous Ictus Piano Duo (pianists Jean-Luc Fafchamps and Jean-Luc Plouvier; www.ictus.be), who generously allowed me to propose the link to this recording.

Designs on paper for 52 stained glass windows for the mosque at the port in Gaza, Palestine (2019).

(Kinshasa, 2016)
20 × 5 m — reclaimed colonial glass, imported industrial glass, Chinese glass, lead

Rencontre sous le ficus was created in a former colonial cotton factory in Kinshasa, now transformed into a cultural centre. The monumental glass wall spans twenty metres in length and five metres in height. It does not divide the space but opens a passage — a threshold between exhibition and encounter. Behind the glass lies a resting place, a small café where visitors can pause, speak, and look.

The work refers to the ficus tree that grows outside the building — a plant domesticated and spread across the world through colonial trade, both familiar and wild. Within the glass, the tree becomes a metaphor for growth and continuity, a shadow-image of coexistence.

By combining colonial glass with contemporary industrial and Chinese glass, the work brings together distinct material and economic histories. During the day, natural light from high windows drifts across the surface; at night, the interior glow reveals the presence of those gathered behind it.

Rencontre sous le ficus becomes a living membrane between day and night, matter and light — a space where history and presence briefly coincide.

The installation “In search of lost time” is a triptych and tells a story by revealing large slides; each of them acting as a unique chapter of an entity.

The canvasses are created by small plastic bags, hanging next to each other. In each bag one finds a piece of a rice bag. In the process of trying to understand time, the image is confiscated and divided it into small compartments.

Cambodia 2005

Bayt Al-Suhaymi (House of Suhaymi) is an old Ottoman house in the main street of old Islamic Cairo, Egypt. All the windows of the house are covered by delicate wooden latticework also called mashrabiyas. The mashrabiyas prevent intense sunlight and dust in but allow to let the cool breeze go through. They are also a veil through which women can look at the scenes of the courtyard and street without being seen from outside. Etching/polymer on copper, different sheets. Edition 2, paper size 75 cm x 45 cm (2008).

Jerusalem Tile Work, stained glass windows, 2018

“It all started while I was working on the design for a mosque in Gaza in 2017. There I was inspired by a Byzantian tile, and that idea developed later into a smaller project for a window in Jerusalem. But the commissioners became excited with the idea of having the design adapted to their second residence in Brussels, Belgium”.

The stained glass windows are all different in size, from left to right (in cm):


window 1: H: 63 x W: 18


window 2: H: 82 x W: 73


window 3: H: 130 x W: 73


window 4: H: 103 x W: 73


window 5: H: 98 x W: 73

“Movement 1”, stained glass window for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt. Mouth-blown glass, size: 210cm x 320 cm (2010)

Check out the whole project, called Mirage, four Stained glass windows and one skylight for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt

“The dance”, stained glass skylight window for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt. 

Mouth-blown glass, size: 350 cm x 350 cm (2010)

Check out the whole project, called Mirage, four stained glass windows and one skylight for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt

Four Stained glass windows and one skylight for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt

Mouvement 1

Mouvement 2

Seen being seen

The dance

Mouth-blown glass (2010)

“Seen, being seen”, stained glass windows for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt. 

Mouth-blown glass, 50 cm x 155 cm (2010) 

Check out the whole project, called Mirage, four Stained glass windows and one skylight for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt

“Mouvement 2” , stained glass window for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt. 

Mouth-blown glass, size: 150 cm x 150 cm (2010). 

Check out the whole project, called Mirage, four Stained glass windows and one skylight for the Said residence in Cairo, Egypt

Because of the continuous acceleration of the rhythm that we live our lives, images are penetrating our everyday life with a giga speed and with that same speed they belong almost immediately to the past, to the history of the immediate. As images are following the one after the other it also becomes harder and harder to remember them.

Etching/polymer on copper.

Edition 2, image size 37cm x 28cm (2012).

The Kivus are two provinces, North and South Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since almost 20 years there is a war raging between different armed groups, all looting the abundant natural resources of the region.  In 2008 the United Nations officially declared rape as a war crime and crime against humanity.

Series of 2, Polymer on copper and drypoint.

The Kivus 1: Colour, image size 25 cm x 18 cm (2015)

The Kivus 2: Colour, image size 27 cm x 37 cm (2015)

Kinshasa, 2015, 145 × 110 cm

Mouth-blown glass (Saint-Just, France), recycled industrial glass from a former cotton factory in Kinshasa (1928), Chinese fantasy glass, lead.

Utex was created for the remains of a destroyed colonial factory in Kinshasa, built in 1928. The work unites three types of glass — European, African, and Chinese — whose coexistence forms a material palimpsest of history and exchange. The reclaimed industrial glass bears the dust and weight of the site; the Chinese glass introduces a fragile shimmer of the present; and the mouth-blown glass at the centre opens a clear zone of light.

The composition evokes a paradoxical clarity — a desire for visibility within opacity. In bringing together materials from different economic and cultural spheres, Utex reflects on how colonial and neo-colonial relations persist through matter itself. The work is not an aesthetic reconstruction of the ruin, but a form of listening: a way of letting light activate what still resonates within the debris of history.

Tshangu elongi ya solo? (The real face of Tshangu?). The district Tshangu is a suburb of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and generally famous for their concentration of the “kuluna”(*). The main activity of these homeless young people is robbing by using violence. Their favourite weapon is the machete. The two art works where exhibited in Masina (one of the five communes of Tshangu).

(*) Kuluna’s can’t be mistaken for Shégés, street kids in the DRC, often orphans or banished by their own parents, accused of sorcery. They end up in the streets and their main activity is begging or selling small items like napkins or sweets.

Series of 2 Etchings, Photopolymer on copper, different sheets. Edition: 1; Image size: 460 mm x 360 mm (2012).

Placed on a pedestal at navel height, the viewer must lean forward to see. A focused spotlight activates the enamel’s reflection, making the image legible only through movement. An everyday object becomes a valley: the work reveals itself only when the viewer shifts position—from eye level to a bird’s-eye view.
The photopolymer layer suggests an abstract network of habitation and displacement. What matters is not representation, but the question: what posture is required to see?

Metal glazed bowl/Polymer. Edition 1, size 40 cm x 40cm (2015).

Design project for a renovated chinese chophouse, called Wangdome, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. - door, stainless steel gate (2005). 

Design project for a renovated chinese chophouse, called Wangdome, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Door, stainless steel (2005). 

Design project for a renovated chinese chophouse, called Wangdome, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. On the rhythm of bamboo, the balustrade crosses the inside and outside of the chophouse. 

Stainless steel balustrade, size: 40 meter x 110cm (2005).

Etching/polymer on copper. Edition 3, image size 37 cm x 28 cm (2007).

Polymer on copper. 

Edition 3, image sizes 25 cm x 20 cm (2011).

The concentric circles are part of our thumbprint, the unique identity of each human being. Identity is not static; it is relative, in constant evolution, depending on where you are. White spots, identity blurs: occupation, loss of land, erasure of memories...

Series of 4, polymer on copper

Edition 3, image size 28 cm x 38 cm (2008)

Stained glass window for the Lang-Hanafin residence in France.

Mouth-blown glass, size: 150 cm x 150 cm (2007).

Consuming images without reflection, the indeference. The installation consists of a ticket dispenser and an etching: size 75cm x 112cm (2015)

Because of the continuous acceleration of the rhythm that we live our lives, images are penetrating our everyday life with a giga speed and with that same speed they belong almost immediately to the past, to the history of the immediate. As images are following the one after the other it also becomes harder and harder to remember them.

Etching/polymer on copper 

Edition 1, image size 24 cm x 20 cm (2011)

Cinélux on Norodom Boulevard in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is one of the two historic movie theatres from the sixties to have survived the Khmer Rouge era. They show mainly local or Thai horror films. Since the golden age, the Cambodian adoration for ghosts and old mythology has made horror films one of the favourite genres among moviegoers there.

Etching/polymer on copper. 

Edition 2, image size 17cm x 12cm (2006 ).