Like astronauts in full protective gear, the participants of the week-long workshop approach the life-threatening ideal environment of glass: 1400-degree hot furnaces. Sunburns ignite on recklessly uncovered skin areas. The crucibles in the long tongs are heavy, and the glass flows like honey over sand molds. On the way back to the cold world, it stretches, cracks, and splinters. With makeshift cooling ovens, they strain not only the material but also the university’s resources. Everyone still has a roast somewhere in the oven, the cooling curves are at their limit, the fusing oven burns 800 degrees hotter than planned, and the plasma torch whistles until finally, the pizza oven brings together the participants and everyone from the Glass Institute and Thermal Engineering.

MELT showcases works by the artist collective Art Ashram, with Klara Adam, Maja Nacke, Georg Scherlin, Daria Wartalska, and Markus Zimmermann, in an intervention at the Terra Mineralia Freiberg – Mineral Exhibition TU Bergakademie Freiberg. Currently on view at the Center for efficient high-temperature processes and materials conversion in Winklerstrasse 5 in Freiberg, weekdays from 9–17 o’clock.

Created within the framework of Pop Up Science – a format by 4transfer. The event series conveys scientific knowledge and research findings to a broad audience. In its second edition, 4transfer is cooperating with the FUNKEN Academy of Klub Solitaer e.V.