Artists

Dan Lie, Bronwyn Katz, Yu Ji, Trương Công Tùng, Luana Vitra

Press release

Curated by Federico Giani and Chiara Nuzzi Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro and Fondazione ICA Milano present Dancing at the Edge of the World, a group exhibition featuring the five finalist artists of the 8th edition of the Arnaldo Pomodoro Sculpture Prize: Bronwyn Katz, Dan Lie, Yu Ji, Trương Công Tùng, and Luana Vitra. The exhibition marks a significant milestone in the Prize's journey and provides the public with insight into the latest trends in international sculptural practice. Established in 2006 at the initiative of Arnaldo Pomodoro, the Prize is one of the few—both in Italy and internationally—dedicated specifically to sculpture. Each edition serves as an observatory on the international art scene, identifying artists between the ages of 25 and 45 whose individual research makes a significant contribution to ongoing reflections on sculptural practices and the very concept of sculpture in contemporary times. Curator Chiara Nuzzi states: «This dance—expressed through postures, images, words, accidents, pulses, matter, and compromises—facilitates an encounter with artistic practices that seek to transform, often unconsciously, the thinking that drives the inexorable destruction of the planet. Beginning with the concept of sculpture as a medium in constant renewal, movement, and evolution, the project as a whole explores alternative perspectives that recognize the potential of contemporary art to reorient epistemological, ontological, and relational trajectories in an era marked by ecological, existential, and relational crises.» In this context, sculpture emerges as a living, constantly evolving entity—not a static object, but a critical and visionary intervention capable of reconfiguring the relationships between human and non-human, natural and artificial, as well as time and space. Dan Lie (1988, Brazil) creates environments in which organic and synthetic materials—fabrics, plants, sand—coexist in a state of tension and transformation, building fragile ecosystems that reflect on the relationships between bodies, spaces, and memory. The work on view—Memórias Corporais (2023)—consists of woven fabrics and organic elements installed like a choreography of gestures, evoking the relationship between the body, textile labor, and cultural memory. Bronwyn Katz (1993, South Africa) explores the convergence of the human body and terrestrial geology, using sculptural materials as phonetic elements of a language or an imagined musical notation. The installation kx'ũi domma (2026) serves as a site of encounter between personal and collective history, evoked through exploited, neglected, or erased materials from Southern Africa, such as sand and soil, copper and rope, beeswax, fragments of shells, and various local plant species. For Luana Vitra (1995, Brazil), the connection to her place of origin—the territory of Minas Gerais—and the recognition of indigenous and diasporic traditions form the foundation of a practice that combines sculpture, performance, and the study of materials with symbolic and ritual significance. Yu Ji (1985, China) works at the intersection of sculpture, performance, and installation, exploring the relationship between body, materiality, and environment. Her practice investigates bodily experience and its entanglement with social and ecological structures. Trương Công Tùng (1986, Vietnam) creates immersive environments that interweave personal and collective memory, using found materials and everyday objects to explore questions of identity, displacement, and cultural transmission.