'Between the Dragon Stones' is a photo-sculpture I created in June 2025 in response to the Palace Museum (Forbidden city) 's invited theme 'Dragon', as part of the technology, culture and creative product program celebrating 100 years history of the museum. This artwork is inspired by a masterpiece from the museum's collection: Auspicious Dragon Stone (祥龍石圖), a painting attributed to the Northern Song Emperor Huizong, a renowned artist and calligrapher who reigned in the early 11th century. His work is not just a painting, but a cultural touchstone that I have reimagined for a contemporary context.

This artwork is a research-based exploration that traces the journey of a single cultural object—the scholar's rock—across time and media. The process begins with the venerated form of the natural Taihu stone, which was first captured in Huizong's two-dimensional ink painting. I translated the ancient image into a 3D model and printed object. Painted in the iconic imperial red of the Palace Museum's walls and anchored on a piece of Chinese found driftwood, the piece is a fusion of imperial refinement and organic impermanence, speaking to the enduring nature of cultural heritage and the ever-changing forms it can inhabit.
This work invites a contemplation of form and void, actively exploring the dynamic interplay between positive and negative space. This is not only present within the intricate contours of the sculpture itself, but also in the profound conversation it initiates with its environment. When illuminated, the sculpture casts a shadow that transcends its physical form, revealing the silhouette of a human face—a contemporary reinterpretation of the scholar stone’s “living spirit.” In literati tradition, these rare stones were cherished as vessels of vitality and character, believed to embody a living, breathing essence. Here, the stone appears to awaken, its projected shadow engaging in a silent dialogue with the viewer, reflecting our own presence and reminding us that cultural objects live on and are continually reborn through the meanings we project onto them.


This duality—the solid, tangible form and its luminous, transient shadow—also serves as a metaphor for the essence of photography itself. Just as a photograph is created by light shaping a moment in time, the shadow is a momentary reframing of reality, an ephemeral image that is unique to every viewing. It highlights how art, like memory, is not static but a constantly shifting image, shaped by light, time, and perception.

This artwork was exhibited from June 20 to July 3, 2025, at the Hong Kong Fringe Club, a historic venue housed in a heritage building over 100 years old in Central Hong Kong. Then storaged by the Palace Museum (Forbidden City) in Beijing.