Abstract

The main objective of this thesis is to propose the first historical account and contextual narrative of the artistic practice of glassblowing in Québec. The analysis begins in 1960, with the founding of industrial units in Montréal by Venetian glassblowers and ends in 1990, with the establishment of the college-level glass program at Espace verre. Expo 67 was a major event in the development of this field of cultural production in Québec but also, more widely, in North America and in Europe. Indeed the world’s fair held in 1967 in Montréal played a crucial role with regard to the production, distribution, reception, teaching and institutionalization of glass art in Québec and internationally. This thesis thus traces the biographies of actors and networks of actors – consisting of people, objects and practices – all of which are connected in some way to Expo 67, as well as the effect of these intersecting trajectories on the subsequent development of glass. In the particular social context of Québec during and following the Quiet Revolution, artistic glassblowing mostly emerged within the larger category of métiers d’art. In this shifting socio-cultural landscape, artisanal productions were invested with different values, linked to the negotiation of status and identity. In a theoretical sense this thesis shows how the development of the field of artistic glassblowing was articulated through the shifting status of categories such as métiers d’art, design, industry, architecture, and the visual arts. In fact, the hybrid practices and spaces of convergences between these categories are emphasized in this account. The ambiguous cultural status of glassblowing in Québec necessitated an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the scholarship of Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoff (the biography of things), Bruno Latour (the actor-network theory), as well as that of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.