Xaquixe, co-founded by Salime Harp and Christian Thornton, was my home from 2012 to 2016. More than a glass studio we strove for it to be a political muscle. A space that could create beautiful, sustainable and emotionally meaningful objects. Photography: Duncan Wolfe
Xaquixe's main focus was making glass artifacts using multiple techniques such as blowing, casting, fusing, slumping and, sometimes, mixing them altogether. The heart of the studio was the furnace where glass was melted at 1300 Celsius. Here Pablo is filling it with 95% recycled glass and 5% of a special formula that allows for typical beer bottles to look like prime crystal.
Pouring glass to make sandcasting prototypes.
Reheating a glass piece during the workshop offered every year at Xaquixe`s studio.
The most successful applied research program at Xaquixe allowed for 80% of all combustion energy, used for melting and reheating glass, to be based on waste cooking oil. By 2016 more than 35 restaurants in Oaxaca, Mexico, contributed with 600 liters of oil every week.
COOKING OIL: From Waste to Energy - Directed by: Snejina Latev
80% of all combustion based energy used for these hand-blown pieces fabrication was sourced from waste cooking oil.
Photography: Andrea Gilli