Lucy Simpson — 'Dhanggal' in Black, 2023

Limited series of glass Dhanggal sculptures.

The glass Dhanggal takes its form from the freshwater mussel shell, a large bivalve mollusc. Handmade in collaboration by artisans at Canberra Glassworks, each piece is individually cast using an 80-year-old shell collected from a parched riverbed within the Murray Darling Basin in Northwestern New South Wales. This shell was one of more than 2 million mussels that perished between 2017 - 2020 at the height of the drought. Lucy sees each individual shell as a record of time and place, a tactile vessel etched with memory. Ranging from translucent to opaque, black to white, pure to gritty, this subtle yet striking collection has been designed to convey a sense of fragility within our natural world and importance of balance and belonging. 

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Yuwaalaraay wirringgaa Lucy Simpson is Creative Director and Principal Designer/Maker behind Gaawaa Miyay, A First Nations design studio inspired by country, relationships and notions of continuity and exchange.

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Material: blown glass, sand

Dimensions: approx. 14cm x 8cm varied