Karel Engels
Karel Engels (°1948) worked in the photographic industry and after his pension he started a training as artistic metal worker. After 5 years, he stopped his training due to infrastructural problems at the school. During an “open door” at the Academy of Berchem, he came into contact Luc de Bruyne during a glass blowing workshop and enrolled in the Glass class. He is most interested by the creating of malls and working with hot glass. For his graduation he combines white glass pieces, based on the structure of a wheel and cut into parts with dark metal. The installation consists of a metal frame in which the glass parts are incorporated. The form is based on an organic structures and refers to a flower. 

Elke Van Werde
Elke Van Werde (°1976) obtained a Master degree in interior architecture at the Henry van de Velde Institute in Antwerp and works as a light advisor, creating lighting plans for shops, churches and schools.
After a training in Sculpture at the Academy of Berchem, of which she graduated with wooden round organic sculptures, she wanted to work with a more transparent material, which enables the passing and reflection of light. She found this characteristics in glass and enrolled in the glass department.
She is inspired by architectural forms that reflect light as in the work of the architect Frank Gehry.
In her graduation work, the architectural forms and the reflections of light play an important part. The lines in her work are rectangular and completely different from her work with wood. Right angels are everywhere in the architectural pieces, that have a white in-transparent side and a transparent side which allows the reflection and penetration of the light in the composition. 

Michel De Smedt
Michel De Smedt (°1957) worked as a teacher in garden design. He became interested in the material glass because of its many possibilities, ranging from glass windows to 3-dimensional objects. The interaction of light with these objects directed his to the material. He first experimented with Tiffany glass, but encountered soon its limitations. He compared the different programs of schools offering glass courses and did choose the Academy of Berchem for its multitude of techniques and diversity.
From the starting point of reality, he tries to find an artistic expression of the things that are within him. In creating his works, the process of making is more important than the final result. His graduation project is called “Dagboekfragmenten” and is based on his diaries, which he uses to enable him to live with a chronic pain problem. The installation consists of 10 form-melted glass panels on which he writes with black ink and adds colors of the spectrum blue-green to visualize his feelings. The panels are places in groups of 3 to 4 in a circle to complete the installation.

Luc Bogaerts
Luc Bogaerts (°1949) finishes his specialization year with a prolongation of his graduation work in 2014. He still has a “hate-love” relationship with the material glass.
After studying typography at the St Lucas Institute in Schaarbeek and working in the printing industry, he did a number of artistic trainings in painting, drawing and restauration before starting at the department “Glaskunst” in Berchem.
He wants to start the creative process based on the technical possibilities of the material and the limitations of the material and the concept of transparency in his object dictates his work. He uses organic forms to construct his pieces that are cast and slumped to become 3-dimensional standing objects referring to anthropomorphic and natural themes. 

 
Leen de Bruyne
Leen de Bruyne (°1955) presents for her specialization year 2 installations composed out of pâte-de-verre elements. She started working with glass based on her fascination with the material and the process of glass blowing, resulting in an object incorporating contradicting aspects such as light versus heavy, hard versus fragile, solid versus liquid.
In her work she wants to express inter-human relationships, in which her own emotions and impressions play an important role. She is inspired by the world she lives in: humans, animals, plants, and the relationship among them.
Her installations  shows the contact between internal and external feelings. The inside of the pâte-de-verre fragments is made up of bright and strong red and yellow colors; the outside of the fragments is dark. The pieces can be combined with the dark skin in a continuous line and decorated with a head-like structure, giving it the aspect of a reptile. When the pieces are places in an open construction, the explosion of colors dictate the feeling, which expresses happiness, life and the goodness that is present in everyone.