Artist Pia Hinz creates sculptures of tools and objects from construction and farming sites using stained glass, transforming items like hammers, screws, and tractor doors into fragile, light-filled artworks. Her work, developed during a 2024 residency at La Menuiserie 2, subverts the utilitarian nature of these forms, exploring the interplay between strength and vulnerability, and questioning the use value and narrative potential of everyday objects.
Hinz's practice matters as it challenges the material expectations of industrial and agricultural environments, introducing beauty and fragility into spaces typically defined by force. By using stained glass—a medium historically associated with sacred spaces—to render mundane tools, she creates a conceptual dialogue about labor, value, and perception, while also contributing to the contemporary revival of stained glass as a sculptural medium, evidenced by her upcoming permanent monument for a Paris building.