Recycling Narratives, No Matter the Weight
"Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one."
John Berger
Recycling Narratives, No Matter the Weight is a participatory artwork exploring the emotional and physical weight we carry through illness, loss, hope and survival.
Created by Hannah Gibson in collaboration with textile artist Naomi Beevers for the 2026 Glass Fashion Show at the Corning Museum of Glass, the work transforms thousands of donated pieces of glass into a single cast glass dress. Together, these individual contributions form a collective portrait of resilience, compassion and connection.
The glass includes chemotherapy bottles, insulin vials, morphine bottles, vaccine vials, homeopathic remedy bottles, perfume bottles, coffee jars, ambulance windscreens and other glass connected to moments of healing, remembrance, celebration and everyday life.
Every piece of glass arrived carrying a history of its own. Some had protected medicines that sustained life. Others marked moments of joy, grief, hope or remembrance. Ordinary objects that had quietly witnessed extraordinary lives.
Contributors from around the world entrusted these pieces of glass to the project, each accompanied by a personal story. Every contribution was carefully documented before being transformed, ensuring its history remained inseparable from the finished work. Individually, each story retained its own identity. Together, they formed a collective narrative in which no voice was diminished.
Through casting, these donated pieces of glass were given a new life. Preserving the character of the original glass while creating something entirely new, the process reflects the ways in which our own experiences continue to shape us. The glass becomes both archive and witness, preserving memories that cannot be seen but remain embedded within the work itself.
The thousands of individually cast glass tiles were brought together by textile artist Naomi Beevers, whose construction of the dress transformed the separate elements into a wearable form. The collaboration between glass and textile reflects the central idea of the work; that individual stories gain strength through connection without ever losing their own voice.
The title refers not only to the physical weight of the finished garment but also to the invisible burdens carried by those whose stories it contains. Illness, recovery, loss, celebration, love and remembrance exist side by side, reminding us that no single experience defines what it means to be human.
The dress is more than a garment. It is a repository of memory, where thousands of individual stories exist side by side without any one diminishing another.
No Matter the Weight invites us to consider what we choose to carry, what we choose to let go, and how the stories of others can help bear the weight of our own.