Philadelphia artist Megan Biddle employs traditional and experimental techniques that seek to provide a material connection for both the maker and the viewer. Working primarily with glass, her practice reflects on measures of time, phenomena of the natural world, and cycles of life and death. For her exhibition at Philadelphia International Airport, Biddle explores the idea of the portal as a threshold between known and unknown states. 

Influenced by the use of mirrors in early Mesoamerican cultures, where reflective surfaces and pools of water were understood as portals to realms that could be seen but not physically entered, Biddle uses black glass as a seemingly liquid surface that invites viewers to imagine passage beyond it. These glass ‘pools’ are combined with Wissahickon Schist, a stone commonly used throughout our region’s architecture and known for its sparkling surface. Formed more than 500 million years ago through ancient tectonic collisions, these rocks are the enduring residue of impact, carrying a geological memory of transformation. 

Biddle describes the process of using pieces of schist as primitive tools, “I push and pull the molten glass against the mold walls, creating bulges and carved channels laced with mica released from the stone. Within seconds, the material cools, preserving the trace of that interaction. The rocks appear suspended in collision with the glass, as though caught in an ongoing moment of impact, awaiting what comes next”. This transitional quality echoes the architecture and psychology of the airport- a liminal site defined by suspension, waiting, and movement between destinations, both physical and metaphorical.

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