The study of Artist’s Role in Traditional Iranian Glass Factories by the Approach of Giddens’ Structuration Theory

The current traditional Iranian glass making is done in factories around the suburbs of large cities like Tehran. This industry has survived with minimal changes like post-industrial revolution era. Contemporary artist needs to visit traditional glass factories and interact with them to use glass in their works of art.

This article studies the artist’s role in glass factories based on Giddens ‘structuration theory to answer the following questions, “What is the role of the contemporary artist in interacting with traditional Iranian glass factories in creating his/her artworks?” and “is this role given to the artist as a result of the interaction with the governing structures or rules, or should these structures and rules be changed?”

This article is a qualitative research and is done in a descriptive-analytical way. Resources are used include Library resources and field studies and authors’ observations.

Evidently, the interaction between the artist and glass factories is based on dominant rules and conditions of glass art and traditional glass making and out of artist’s choice. This study with sociological approach examines relationship between traditional factors in glass making (as structure/ rules) and artist (as actors/resources). The results show that according to the theory of the structuration any change in the rules and resources of human activity will change the overall system. Accordingly, the development of contemporary glass making art requires changes in the relationship between the artist and the glass factoriesBy changing the whole system, the artist can interact with the structure. In fact, it may be better for the artist in the process of making his/her own artwork to look for a suitable structure rather than interacting with the structure that is governed on the glass factories. The question of the structure of glassmaking studios is a subject of another research.