Hands are instruments of knowledge

As a child in London, I fell into the Thames: although I was rescued immediately, the light I perceived in the water, all around and above me, has remained etched in my memory and changed me; in that moment, I fell in love with light, so much so that, many years later, when I chose to pursue a career in the arts, I placed it at the heart of my work. Water and the sun’s energy are at the origin of life, of the human race, of its development and its rise.

Our ancestors’ fins reproduced the music of the waves. They sensed the scent of the air from beneath the water and, being amphibians, made their way onto dry land. Whilst some branched out upwards, reaching towards the sky to trace lines, our bones slowly fused together, two million years ago, so that we might encounter matter, the world and ourselves. It is through our hands that our process of understanding others and the world begins, just as our journey onto dry land began. Helping ourselves with our hands, propelling ourselves towards the light. We do not think solely through the cerebral cortex; our bodies, too, participate in the process of learning and in the creation of culture. Our hands and fingertips are instruments of knowledge. Today, sixteen billion hands dance every day with the universe, speaking a universal language: hands use a language understood by all. For this reason, when the Michelangelo Foundation invited me to curate the new edition of Homo Faber, I did not think only of the hands of the hundreds of craftspeople from all over the world who contribute their works of art to the exhibition, but also of the light and water that dominate the Venetian archipelago. I thought of the creations of those hands as a manipulation of light. Works that dance with light, because the materials from which they are made – clay, wicker, glass, feathers, wood – came into being through the interaction between natural elements and manual skill.

Each artisan is an island of talent and excellence, just as the island of San Giorgio Maggiore – where the event takes place – represents, through its history of industrious spirituality, not merely a backdrop but a true source of inspiration for the masterpieces on display in its cloisters, halls and gardens. While collaborating with the artists on the selection of subjects, I drew inspiration from the lagoon’s fauna—its birds and fish; each of the seven hundred objects that has found its way here sings a unique melody, drawn directly from its creator’s score. Each piece bears the imprints, traces, and marks of time, along with the light of Venice. One must, however, take the time to decipher their meaning. To get to know them. To commit their forms and substance to memory, and to observe the way in which each one conveys the unique light of the place where it stands. Every time we come into contact with a work of human ingenuity, we encounter a pair of hands, an embodied mind, a link to places, circumstances, culture, climate, ideas and eras. Every object has found its form out of chaos; every pair of hands reflects the light of the planet back to us through their own craft and skill.