“Perhaps glass has a particular propensity to link to the otherworldly. One thinks of the mirror-as-threshold for Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There…”

—John Garrison, Glass

Just as Alice steps through the looking-glass into a fantastical world of wonder and strangeness, Meng Du invites viewers, through a new body of works in glass, into a realm of her own imagining—a place of legend where, beyond the mountains and deep within the forest, stands a nameless greenhouse.

Step inside, and you will begin to uncover the many secrets hidden within this silent greenhouse. The gardener is nowhere to be found, leaving behind only rusted window frames, strangely shaped tools, and notebooks stained with verdigris… And yet, the greenhouse seems to teem with life: seeds drift through the air, vines wind their way upward, while sparrows peer in from hidden corners.

Working with glass through a range of techniques—including mosaic, casting, and glassblowing—and incorporating materials such as found objects, textiles, and metal, Meng Du creates a wondrous realm where past, present, and future overlap and coexist. Through this exhibition, she returns to questions that have long run through her practice: how might fleeting moments of memory be preserved within the inevitable passage of time? How might we position ourselves before a natural world and cosmos far vaster and more enduring than any individual life, while sustaining a sense of reverence for life itself?

Now, step into the story, and let your exploration begin—