Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp
Artistic research residency at Mixlab

2026

Box Plinth
cast glass




 





Ivania Carpio was invited by Mixlab at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, as one of seven artists to explore how digital fabrication techniques can expand their artistic practices. 

During her residency, she investigated how these contemporary technologies could be integrated with the methods of her glass casting works.  Glass casting largely fell out of continuous craft practice for over a millennium after the fall of the Roman Empire, before being revived by studio artists in the 1960s, remaining a relatively young discipline.

A central aspect of the research was technical, working closely with the inherent behaviour of glass as an amorphous solid, engaging its slowness, gravity, and what can be understood as tensile energy within its structural transformation.

The resulting work, Box Plinth, is a modular two-part glass object weighing 23 kilos. Functioning as plinth, container, and display surface, it continues an ongoing interest in the container as an archetype and delineated zone with sensory, material, and symbolic cues that shape how we notice, feel, and engage.

The residency culminated with the exhibitiohn Tasting Tendrills,  presenting the processes and outcomes of seven residencies at Mixlab, led by Matthias Mu and co-curated by Anna Laganovska, shown during Antwerp Art Weekend 2026 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. 








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