How 'Glass Sutra' is offering exotic team building activities for corporates

Glass-blowing as a corporate team-building activity may sound exotic, but that's exactly what Glass Sutra, 'India's only functional glass art studio', offers. In the short span of just over a year since its launch, Glass Sutra, which is located in Chhattarpur on the border of Delhi and Gurgaon, has already had several top-notch companies sending their teams. These include, says Reshmi Dey, Glass Sutra's founder and a well-known glass artist, Ikea, Google, Maruti Suzuki, LG among others.

Dey tells us how the two-day corporate programme at Glass Sutra pans out. "Day one begins with providing an understanding of how glass works and some technical inputs. Then the team is taken to the workshop area, where we demonstrate how to work with the flame." A hand-held blowtorch is used to bend, twist or cut tubes of borosilicate glass into different shapes; the melted glass can also be pressed into moulds to make flowers, or other decorative elements. The teams are then given some time to get a feel of the tools and to understand how glass works, says Dey. By the end of the day, they are expected to create something that they can take away with themselves – a small piece like a glass stirrer, or a ring.

The next day, the group needs to make one design together as a team. "From the first day's workshop, each member of the team knows their skill – someone could be good at joining, someone in twisting and turning a piece. So they need to divide the work between them, and work together to make it," explains Dey.

It's also a lot of fun. The day this writer visited Glass Sutra, for instance, there was a team from the design department of Maruti Suzuki undergoing the workshop. "I am part of the styling department, which looks at the interiors and the specifications of the material that should be used. Glass is not something I've worked with ever," says Gunjan Malhotra, sitting at the workbench, trying to manipulate a glass rod into even spirals. Six of her colleagues sit next to her, each trying out different shapes – a triangle, a curve and so on. They are being helped by a few artisans from Firozabad, a town in Uttar Pradesh, which is a major centre for glass-making in India. Each wears dark glasses and other gear to protect themselves from the intense heat of the blowtorches. There's camaraderie, banter as they check out what the other is doing, and make suggestions for how they might do something differently.

The entire workshop, says Dey, helps to unleash their creativity. "Everybody has a creative mind, after all. Besides, they can be free, not restricted by work boundaries," says the artist, who has studied glass-making in Murano and several locations across Europe.

Chetan Sorab, formerly design head with LG Electronics' lifestyle appliances division, who took part in the workshop along with 16 colleagues, agrees. "Working with a different medium helps free the imagination. From a design perspective, it helped to give a different viewpoint. I'm sure much of what we experienced will prove useful in some form later."

Besides workshops, Dey also conducts corporate events for companies like Absolut Vodka and Grey Goose. "We did the launch of Maruti S Cross facelift in Udaipur where we invited people – many automobile journalists and bloggers among them – to work with glass. "It was a huge success with everyone participating. Everyone made something, however little, that they could take back with them," says Dey.