Peiyu Jiang received the U21 Summer School Scholarship, and studied photography and glass art at the Univ. of Glasgow.

Glasgow life: Cutting glass, and painting it

The U21 scholarship gave me a free and a short but sweet 'vacation' to Scotland, and gave me the opportunity to see the beauty of Scotland's scenery and art, while not being away from home for too long.

With U21 Scholarship programme provided by UvA, I was able to choose the summer school "Scottish Urban Landscapes in Film and Glass" at the University of Glasgow. For me personally, this gave me the opportunity to do something totally different than just study and making exams what I did for the past few years at the UvA.

The added value of this programme is that I learned a lot about photography techniques, the art of making Scottish glass and Scottish culture as a whole.

Scotland winters are cold, but the summer is perfect, with a mysterious and interesting culture, as well as friendly people! At the same time, I came to Scotland during the best time, met amazing teachers and classmates, and experienced the local customs of Glasgow firsthand. As an Earth Sciences student from the University of Amsterdam, Scotland is a great place to learn: almost all their restaurants use cups, boxes and straws made from recycled materials, which are all very environmentally friendly and efficient.

I fell in love with photography and glass art courses. Scotland gave me a very good opportunity to learn some skills that are not related to my major.

While studying at the university’s Faculty of Art I gained a lot of knowledge about the Scottish arts and their social and cultural influences. Although I cannot yet say how this experience will influence me in the future, what I can be sure of is that I will always remember my teachers’ words when making glass paintings: "patience and effort, or the glass will hurt you".