Sculpting a perfect partnership

Last autumn, each sculptor working in Seravezza carved two pieces out of a block of white, luminescent Carrara marble - the same limestone Michelangelo selected from the quarries of the Apuan Alps. These works were shipped to the artists' Hong Kong-based partners, who added wooden elements to complete them. In the next phase, sculptures made from teak and camphorwood by Hong Kong artists were sent to be finished in Italy by adding marble elements.

Hong Kong sculptor Cynthia Sah, founder-director of the nonprofit Arkad Foundation, says that initially, Fusion was planned as an artist residency exchange between Hong Kong and the foundation. Then the pandemic happened, and the only way the collaboration could continue was by holding discussions and sharing updates via video calls.

Fusion 2 highlights universally experienced emotions, triggered by distance, separation, reunion and more such.

For example, Dancing Moon, a piece co-created by Hong Kong's Margaret Chu and the Italy-based French artist Aurlien Boussin, draws attention to the moon's constant and universal presence in people's lives, whether it's waxing or waning.

Danny Lee Chin-fai and Francesca Bernardini's Poetry of Nature pairs a marble tree with a teakwood piece sculpted to resemble a Taihu stone. The combination represents vital communication between distant lands, says Lee. The piece also epitomizes his artistic philosophy: "I reduce complexity to simplicity, and beauty emerges in simplification."