The Glass Between Us: Pandemic-Era Plexiglass Reimagined as Couture Exploring Isolation, Connection, and Memory

This work begins with a material often dismissed as disposable. During the Pandemic, plexiglass shields once served as barriers in schools, offices, and stores. Now, it carries that history with it into new forms. Frosted by hand, laser-cut, and reassembled, what was once a shield of isolation becomes a lattice that dresses the body. It is fragile, weighty, and architectural.

I am interested in how materials hold memory, and how what is often considered “waste” can be reimagined as something both precious and somewhat estranged from its initial intended purpose. We remember the glass’s past life as protection and separation, even as it takes on an entirely different function: ornament, structure, and sometimes burden.

In giving this plexiglass a second life, I hope to reveal how our collective grief and isolation remain present in the physical things we’ve left behind, and that our resilience lives in our ability to transform.