The Leith Pattern uses object materiality to capture the social history of context and place. This work explores glass production in the port town of Leith, a suburb of Edinburgh Scotland. In the 1770, Leith Glassworks produced one million hand and machine fabricated bottles per week. The Leith pattern
bottle is said to be the predecessor of the parallel-sided, round-shouldered, narrow neck bottle now dominant within the today’s wine industry. However the truth of the matter is that this is what someone had published on Wikipedia but Mann was fascinated in unpacking what percentage was fact and how such a myth originated.
Working alongside historians and interviewing residents of Leith, Mann explored Leith’s lost Industrial heritage through the objects that where once manufactured there. Mann’s supporting animation titled ‘Mary’, is an excerpt from an interview with Mary Majority, a Leith institution and if possible someone who should be acknowledged as part of the intangible cultural heritage of the area.
Exhibition Installation
The Art of Glass, National Museum of Scotland, 2018
New Glass Now, Corning Museum of Glass, 2019