Knock on wood: Artist explores acts of creation

One quiet afternoon in her studio, wood crafting artist Hua Yong found herself watching water boil. Instinctively, she reached for her phone and refreshed the screen. In that fleeting moment, she realized how much modern life is consumed by speed.

"We are completely swept up by this hyper-fast rhythm," she says. "It's becoming harder to find time to unwind amid the everyday chaos of life."

Hua, the 2024 recipient of the Hand of Wisdom prize, a Sino-French crafts exchange program, spent two months in Paris last year, a rare stretch of uninterrupted time that allowed her to reflect on the act of creation.