MAD architecture studio-founder Ma Yansong's Light artwork stands in a rural tea field. In this interview, he tells Dezeen his thoughts about the connection between art and architecture.
Yansong's latest work, Light, is on a smaller scale than the ambitious architecture projects that his studio is well-known for.
Top image: Ma Yansong has created the Light installation. Above: it stands in a tea field on top of a hill
The installation is an undulating lightweight steel structure clad in translucent fabric that shields a small copse of trees on top of a hill in a tea field near Hanxi Village.
The architect was inspired by the surrounding nature when he created the sculptural artwork, which is part of the Art at Fuliang 2021 festival.
"We looked at those mountains and the villages and we chose this spot on the hilltop of this tea field," Yansong told Dezeen. "And then we proposed our piece, Light ? of the earth actually, because it's connected to the whole tea-field mountain."
A translucent fabric shields the trees
During the daytime, the see-through fabric creates a sculptural encasing for the trees in the field, while at night the artwork is lit up like a lantern.
"There are several tea fields around the villages and I thought they were half-nature, half-manmade," Yansong said.
"You see those ambulating contour lines around the mountain and they were so beautiful. There were a couple of trees on the hilltop and they felt like a sculpture...