A few of these pieces were written over years, but several during the pandemic summer of 2020, when poetry, music and Wild Cranes became a refuge
from negativity, a place for the magic of life and human relationships.

Some are freeze frames of a moment in time, a flashback, or a daydream. Others are meditations on confluence and coincidence, on destiny, fate and chance.

Many of us wish to transcend boundaries, perhaps to be greater than ourselves. Translating these pieces offered a door to new possibilities.

Liuyu Ivy Chen, writer, poet, alchemist, brought her incredible sensitivity to the translation. But I wanted the thoughts to transform further, into something
visual. I wanted to create something beautiful in an age of great anxiety,. The next step led obviously to the elegance and power of traditional calligraphy. The incredibly talented Zhao Xu came into the picture to turn this step into reality. And Tanya Ghosh, a brilliant artist, turned all these pieces into objects of
a unified, luminous beauty.

Four busy artists ended up collaborating across the planet - the writer Indian born, of a German mother and a Bengali father, writing in English and living in Washington DC; the translator born in China and transplanted to New York; the calligrapher in China shuttling between Beijing and Dalian; the designer and photographer grown up halfway across the world and now also a transplant in New York.

Wild Cranes opened in July 2021 at the Chinese American Museum in Washington DC, and ran for six months. Subsequently it opened at The Arts House in Singapore, in February 2022, for one week, with sales proceeds donated to charities caring for victims of domestic violence.