The opening of the Canberra Glassworks was the gala event of the year, with the week-end program attracting record crowds from visitors around Australia and overseas. Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts, Jon Stanhope MLA, officially opened the Canberra Glassworks at the Kingston Powerhouse on Friday morning - thus beginning three days of celebrations.

With Canberra's biggest party in the evening and the opening of the Canberra Glassworks inaugral exhibition Heartland: imagination, creation, innovation, curated by Barbara McConchie, Executive Director of Craft ACT, came music, wine and food while being treated to demonstrations and tours of the facilities. International glass artist, Klaus Moje, presented the following speech as part of the evening celebrations. Klause Moje speech

Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts, Jon Stanhope MLA, officially opened the the Canberra Glassworks at the Kingston Powerhouse on Friday, 25 May 2007.

Chair of the Canberra Glassworks, John Mackay, and fellow board members; Glassworks Director Ann Jakle, and Glassworks staff; My Assembly colleagues, Mr Wayne Berry, Ms Mary Porter, Dr Deb Foskey, Mr Brendan Smyth, Mr Richard Mulcahy, Mrs Vicki Dunne; The Member for Canberra Annette Ellis, Senator Kate Kundy, Senator Gary Humphries; Distinguished guests.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on, the Ngunnawal people. I respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this area.

Most of us are given very few opportunities, over the course of our lifetimes, to be present at the birth of a cultural landmark. Even more rarely are we afforded the chance to combine that birth with a rebirth.

Canberra's very first public building, the Kingston Powerhouse, was part of the daily lives of the earliest generations of Canberrans, The blaring hooter that marked the changing of shifts was the standard by which watches and clocks were set for miles around, the signal by which meals were prepared and childhood games regulated.

After its decommissioning, the Powerhouse became that rarity in this city of new buildings and fresh surfaces - a looming, almost gothic presence on the banks of a new, man-made lake, gradually and increasingly isolated as its industrial companions along this stretch of land also closed their doors or moved on.

Today, heat, light, power and noise return to this special building. It is wonderfully fitting that the new purpose to which this space will be put echoes in so many ways its original industrial heartbeat. This will be a powerhouse again, but of a different kind - a creative powerhouse.

As we have heard, Canberra's glass artists and others trained here at the ANU School of Art's Glass Workshop, have a solid reputation nationally and even internationally.

But while Canberra has become known as a special place for glass art, the reality has been that practising glass artists have found it difficult to make a livelihood here, without the workshops, furnaces, kilns and equipment that are their basic tools of trade. These are not kinds of infrastructure ordinary suburban houses can accommodate or that individual artists can afford. Glass art, even when individual, is necessarily communal.

The idea for a dedicated glass workshop came originally from our glass artists themselves - talented Canberrans who wanted to remain Canberrans.

Over a number of years, the idea was nurtured and developed. Business models were drawn up. Possible locations were scouted.

Then, in 2005, the ACT Government began its historic investment here at the disused Kingston Powerhouse.

Today, the rebirth is complete: a working facility for working artists, part of a network of arts facilities supported by the ACT Government that provide specialist working spaces and equipment for artists, as well as places where the broader community can participate in the arts.

But the Canberra Glassworks is more. It has the potential to become one of this city's greatest cultural attractions, at the heart of its newest cultural precinct.

Canberra Glassworks Ltd also joins the network of 22 key arts organisations supported by the ACT Government, the organisations that help shape our cultural personality, that enrich the lives of every Canberran, directly or indirectly.

Special tribute should be paid today to Jocelyn Jackson from Tanner Architects, who first walked into this stunning industrial cathedral and saw beyond the dust motes and the pigeon feathers and the graffiti to imagine the space we see today. I have visited this place a number of times during its transformation and perhaps on every one of these occasions Jocelyn Tanner has been here, with that same sense of vision shining in her eyes.

There are many to thank. Too many to single out. There are those from the arts community who were there at the start and are here at one ending and another beginning - including Klaus Moje.

There's Ann Jakle and her management team, who will bring this place roaring back to life, and John McKay and his fellow board members.

There's the wonderful, professional, passionate staff of ArtsACT.

There are those from the private sector who have lent their philanthropic support, in particular the Land Development Agency, ACTEWAGL and the Thomas Foundation, and our media partners - WIN, the Canberra Times, MIX 106, and MA@D Communications, who have accompanied us on this journey.

If I might, I would also like to take this opportunity to personally thank the Director of ArtsACT, John Stanwell, who has nurtured this Glassworks through its gestation, and who has managed to combine an unflinching realism with unbounded optimism for the future of this place.

One of the great gifts of public life is the opportunity to see, from conception to realisation, an idea. As someone who spent decades as a public servant before I became a politician I know that this is also one of the real, though under-estimated gifts of public service. I regret that John Stanwell will soon leave the ACT public service to relocate with his family to Melbourne. But I hope that in future years he will be drawn back frequently to Canberra, and that if he chances to drive down Wentworth Avenue on any of those future visits he will glance out of his car window at this building, and he will think, "I made that".

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canberra Glassworks, the newest addition to our rich cultural landscape.

Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts, Jon Stanhope MLA
May, 2007

Klaus Moje

Dear Chief Minister- Dear Chairman - Dear sponsors and greeting to all those who are standing in line to support as new sponsors our new cultural facility. Dear friends and fellow artists.

The people of Canberra, with an outstanding effort, have established a centre of cultural awareness and excellence that has no comparence neither nationally or internationally.

At the beginning there was the Glass Workshop at the Canberra School of Art where a generation of students emerged as competent artists year after year and, with no place to go in Canberra, they went to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or ever further - overseas. There, unrecognised here, they gained respect and recognition for their unusual and successful approach to material and content in their creations. Artists, educated in Canberra, have taken on teaching positions nationally as well as being involved as techers, instructors or sought after technical assistants in the US, Japan, England and even in Italy, amongst other countries.

This project, the Canberra Glassworks, will bring them home. With this facility we open a new chapter of recognition, not only for glass and the artists involved with this beautiful material, but also for Canberra.

The balance between academic education and the hands-on experience is what you can find here. This is the place where the community can enjoy the watching of the process and become involved as students and makers. We will make and show the best that is available in contemporary glass and you, the Canberrans are invited to be involved.

Glass workers are team workers. You can view this by watching the demonstrations. It is the team approach that started this project and will lead to the successful managing of the Glassworks, but individuals have taken on the task to pressure on with this project and I want to name and express my thanks to few where many have carried on.

These are Lienor Torre Allen who wrote the first application, now 11 years ago, Jenny Deves and Steven Proctor who pushed this project on and Richart Whiteley, who with the backing of the ANU and with the student body of the Glass Workshop was substantially involved to make work what you see today.

Our thanks go to both sides of the Canberra Assembly, who stood behind this project from the beginning and ArtsACT who supported wholeheartedly our vision.

Chief Minister, people of Canberra - we owe you - we thank you.

Klaus Moje
May, 2007