esea contemporary and MAO (Museum of Asian Art), Turin, are pleased to present ‘Shadow and Void: Buddha10’, an innovative collaboration between the UK’s only non-profit gallery dedicated to East and Southeast Asian contemporary art and one of Europe’s foremost institutional collections of Asian art. Curated by Xiaowen Zhu, Director of esea contemporary, and Davide Quadrio, Director of MAO, this exhibition intertwines scientific studies, contemporary art, and spirituality by showcasing recently restored Buddhist sculptures from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries CE, on loan from MAO, alongside contemporary works by Shigeru Ishihara, Lee Mingwei, LuYang, Sun Xun, Sinta Tantra, Wu Chi-Tsung, and Zheng Bo, including three new commissions created specifically for ‘Buddha10’.
The ‘Buddha10’ project began in 2022 as an initiative by MAO to study, analyse, and critically reinterpret Buddhist artefacts from its collection, asking questions such as: Where do they come from? Why are they here? What are the reasons behind the presence of these pieces in an Italian museum? And ultimately, how did they get here?