Inspired by Space was the next stage in a Polish-Ukrainian series of artistic encounters exploring the relationship between art, design, people, and the natural environment. In 2016, the project took place in Lviv, hosted by the Lviv National Academy of Arts and the Botanical Garden of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

This time, I was an organiser and a representative of the host institution. I wanted to continue the exploration begun at our previous meeting in Uniejów, but in a new setting, bringing our students together with students from art institutions in Łódź and Poznań. I also took part in the symposium’s creative work.

The programme combined practical work with learning and research. Participants attended lectures on the history of garden design, land art, industrial design, and traditional glassblowing techniques. After studying the landscape of the Botanical Garden, students and teachers created artistic and decorative objects for its outdoor spaces and greenhouse.

The experiment with hand-blown glass became especially significant. For many participants, it was a new material that called for a new way of thinking. Working together, designers and glass artists produced both artworks and functional objects.

What mattered most to me was that, for the first time in our series of encounters, glass moved beyond the gallery. Its transparency, reflections, and response to light and vegetation allowed it to exist differently in a natural setting. Some objects, particularly those placed in the greenhouse, could remain there far longer than the ephemeral works outdoors, entering into an ongoing dialogue with the living environment.

Working alongside students was equally important to me. Teachers and students faced the same challenge: to explore an unfamiliar setting, sense its scale and character, understand what the material could do, and find a form that belonged in that particular place.

Inspired by Space marked another step for me away from thinking in terms of traditional exhibitions and towards site-specific practice and land art. My experience as a painter — working with colour, light, rhythm, and composition — carried into physical space, where material, landscape, plants, natural light, and time became part of the work.