Connecting to Collections Care

Call for Papers

ICON Stained Glass Group Annual Conference 2025

Removed, Remodelled, Relocated: The movement of stained glass from its original setting to places new.

The ICON Stained Glass Group is pleased to announce its annual conference, to be held at Canterbury Cathedral 3^rd and 4^th October, 2025.

Location: Canterbury Cathedral Lodge, The Precincts, Canterbury, CT1 2EH

The rise in the closure of historic buildings and places of worship has led to an increasing risk to stained glass where windows are broken up, dismantled, resold and – if not lost entirely - relocated. This year's theme aims to follow the journey of transposed historic architectural glass from creation, displacement, restoration or reworking and eventually reinstallation in a new context. The conference will include discussions of medieval, modern, and composite stained glass and will welcome papers on but not limited to:

·         Re-location of stained glass windows (whole or in parts) to different parts of a building or to a different building

·         Movement through sale and auction house

·         Misplacements, reproductions, and forgeries

·         Practical examples of how to display/rehome stained glass

·         Innovative or unusual displays of fragments or otherwise broken up windows

We invite speakers to reflect on comparisons between previous and new locations, altered historical and artistic significance in their new location/form, appearance differences (through design or degradation) and the change in overall heritage values through these acts of restoration, reworking, and salvage.
We encourage emphasis on problem solving, whether practical or bureaucratic and the methods used to overcome these difficulties.

All students, early-years practitioners and established professionals are welcome to submit papers.

Please submit a short abstract to; iconstainedglass@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions ; 30th April 2025

Also email if you have any specific queries or would like to arrange a discussion.

Please share amongst stained glass contemporaries and save the date. We look forward to welcoming all to Canterbury for this year's ICON Stained Glass Group Annual Conference.