Glass: supreme refinement. Brittleness, fragility. To be made of glass is to be precious, in between a state solid and condition liquid. A polite statement allowing people to admire you but to never, ever get too close. Lest they wear archival gloves. Speaking of one’s preciousness is better a distance regulator than any, an elegant response to the fears of being mishandled. The archivist is reminded, through guidelines, courses, decimals, and databases to handle with care. To operate within a system of vigilance. The gloves remind the archivist she will never be completely close to the delicacy of glass. The classical archive does not permit. But the archivist longs to hear the murmurs of everything the glove can’t see reflected in what’s precious. 

Artefacts threaten to fragment as they simultaneously create and dread dust. The archivist refuses to let the dust settle. The glass fears the cold, the heat, hard floors, sharp objects, grease of hands, insects, water damage, mould and light. The archive keeps the artefact in a vault. The archivist fears the aches, the pains too. She waits for a diagnosis and a solution. She sits in silence, she cares for the glass objects, the archive a safer waiting room. She listens. 

A nervous King Charles VI was persuaded he was glass-made. So as not to splinter he wore reinforced coats and robes and clad himself with iron to bolster swift movements. The archivist gently tucks the object away in a sleeve, in an archival box, padded and cushioned so all that might crackle is protected. She knows she too is made of glass.Together they make sense of each other so glass and archivist become a Verillon. She’s heard its need to hum as she strikes it with cloth covered sticks. The stories within resonate in an unregulated landscape as the glass in the archive tells its tale. It strikes back and the archivist, gloves off, learns how to clink too. 

‘Glass Collection Storage At Cooper Hewitt’ explains to the curious archivist that ‘dust can attract moisture in the air, which on some glass surfaces leeches or pulls out minerals in the glass which leads to its deterioration.’ The archivist loves glass and breathes onto the dust for a frisson de vie: dust loves glass. Glass experiences signs of deterioration if it loves dust back. The glass goes back into its case. Surely it’s inconceivable to let chaos and reason work together. Hands go back into the gloves.

The archivist speaks the language glass has always taught her: to archive is to care. The archivist mirrors what she learned to do to herself as echoes and a familiar vernacular of vigilance and caution vibrate onto the ellipses in history. The archivist has chosen to care for brittle bones of time, managing symptoms as she’s supervised what’s been etched onto her. She’s been wearing strange coats to pillow shocks too and she whispers what she’s learned from objects of function: the windows, drinking glasses, perfume and water bottles she’s encountered have all played an active and intentional role within the files. To let them be would mean going quiet herself. She takes off her archival gloves and she fosters the object’s tarnish and imaginary. 

Glass is strong and embellishes and adapts. The archivist sees through the crystalline trembling. Elizabethan England even witnessed an illness in beauty, a Glass Craze. The archivist witnesses the mania first hand (no glove) as diaries bear witness to homelife. Windows transformed living rooms into arenas for the world to witness the strength of social status. It was the glass and its craze that made it stronger. The archivist begins to look through the window within the archive, a cabinet of itself allowing reflections. 

Glass is a poet for all times, a great cultural and evolutionary substance. Glass is strong. Glass is vulnerable. Glass demands protection against drops and shocks. Glass is a portal. Glass magnifies. The archivist knows the object is stronger and more fascinating in its weakness. But history asks for glass to be stored gently, untouched, separate. In a creative frenzy, the archivist unpacks the profuse riches in the closed and private world of the archive. The fragile objects make the archivist’s understanding of history powerful. She begins to see it everywhere. In L’Archiviste by Alexandra Koszelyk, K. safeguards a nation under siege by coming closer to its yesterdays, hiding them from the oppressor wishing to erase traces of time. The objects in the archive despise violent attacks, just like glass and just like the archivist. Nurturing and listening to fragile artefacts as the only portal to the burliness of their stories. Gloves off but zabuton on, please. 

The year is 2019, the archivist finds glass at Microsoft Ignite. The speaker announces that the company has been experimenting with Glass as a data archival solution: a medium for cold data storage. ‘The researchers at Microsoft have been hard at work ensuring that the glass disks will be durable enough to survive the real world. Microsoft has been subjecting the glass disks to various tortures to ensure their durability.’ They partnered with Warner Bros. and preserved the 1978 movie Superman in a 75mm x 75mm x 2mm wafer of glass! Glass is strong enough to protect even Superman! ‘Over time, glass may very well prove to be the absolute best medium for long-term immutable data storage.’ The archivist always knew glass was the humming solution in every waiting room. 

Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria said she swallowed a glass piano. No one could see it so no one could contest it but it was there. She knew if someone misused and mismanaged her, it would shatter inside her. Glass had to be steered a certain way was all. The archivist admits to swallowing a glass piano too: she’s been synthesising her own foibles with the strong frailty of glass. In an affective curatorial encounter between object and researcher, the glass craze germinates within the archivist. The archivist wears long skirts and wears no gloves. 

The Archivist can’t see without her Glasses. Glass and Archivist have always been one. Archivist is a Glass graduate encasing the things that only Glass knows. Glass transforms all it touches into a substance worth treasuring. Glass invites you to join as Archivist, always on the threshold of exhaustion, is an enlightened spectator and participant of a duet with Glass, tucked away within the archive and dancing in silence, secrecy and shame. Glass is clairvoyance, a petri dish worth peering through. 

James Howell referred to Glass as ‘a diaphanous pellucid dainty body, ’ and wasn’t it Saburo Teshigawara who once said ‘broken Glass is life,’ as he danced over life?

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Cover image: Laura Splan. "Gloves". 2009. Remnant cosmetic facial peel sculpture cast from artist's hands.