The Adele and Leonard Leight Glass Art Award – Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez

AUGUST 7 – OCTOBER 19, 2025

Gallery 1

Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez (American, born 1988), the inaugural recipient of the biennial Adele and Leonard Leight Glass Art Award, will unveil her unique, Speed-commissioned installation work in the original 1927 building’s Gallery 1—a fitting venue for the launch of the Leight Award and its critical support for younger artists who work with glass.

Based in Philadelphia, Ahmadizadeh combines poetry, images, and glass objects to create layered installations that draw inspiration from her Puerto Rican and Persian heritage. Glass plays into her artwork in multiple ways and across multiple fabrication techniques including neon, blown glass, and flameworked glass.

The Adele and Leonard Leight Glass Award was established in 2022 through a generous endowment gift of Jenna, Jonathan, and Peter Leight in memory of their parents, long-time supporters and board members of the Speed who donated their internationally recognized collections of contemporary glass and ceramics and 20th-century design to the Museum. Building on the Leights’ collecting and educational legacy, the award aims to celebrate emerging and mid-career artistic talent; to continue to grow the Speed’s collection with a diverse range of national and international artists; and to foster community engagement and education through artist-led programming.

Ahmadizadeh has been awarded artist residencies at Pilchuck Glass School, MASS MoCA, Blue Mountain Center, and the Corning Museum of Glass, among others. Her work was recently included in the Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco, CA) exhibition, Neon as Soulcraft, curated by Kelsey Issel and Meryl Pataky of She Bends, an organization dedicated to pushing the medium of neon beyond the confines of commercial signage and into the realm of fine art. Additionally, Ahmadizadeh’s work has been shown at dozens of galleries and museums in the United States and abroad, including Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, S12, Heller Gallery, Traver Gallery, and the Tacoma Museum of Glass. Her sculptures are included in New Glass Review #33, #38, and #42, annual journals published by the Corning Museum of Glass documenting innovative artworks in glass.

A passionate educator as well as an artist, Ahmadizadeh previously served as director of The Bead Project at UrbanGlass, a program geared towards diversifying glass and supporting femmes as they learn how to work with the material. She has been an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, from which she received her BFA, for the past several years. She holds an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.