I /WORK

WORK was first developed as a digital artwork: a sequence of four hands tracing the migration of labor from embodied, physical action to symbolic, screen-based interaction. The work moved from a high-fidelity, classically rendered human hand through increasingly abstracted forms to a pixelated cursor derived from early Macintosh operating systems, giving visual form to a historical shift from touch to interface and from visible effort to encoded action.

In 2024, the sequence was translated into a four-part sculpture handcrafted in sterling silver, co-produced with Martin Klipp of Beyond Art Creative and handcrafted by the Asprey Studio Workshop. Collected by SILK's co-founders Dino and Ambar in 2025, WORK was shown in Hong Kong alongside LUCK and PLAY.

II /LUCK

LUCK took the form of six silver dice in which numerical variance had been fully eliminated: each die carried the same number on every face, making every roll a repetition of what was already known. The work retained the form of chance while replacing indeterminacy with certainty, turning the dice into a physical model of outcomes structured in advance of participation.

Through that simple displacement, LUCK brought questions of probability, control, and ownership into material form. Within WORK, LUCK, PLAY, it operated as both a self-contained sculpture and a larger participatory system, available as a complete silver set and also approached through repetition, exchange, and coordination.

III /PLAY

PLAY was the participatory dimension of WORK, LUCK, PLAY, translating the project's ideas into a shared social experience. Across the fair and online, it placed visitors inside a system of exchange, conversation, repetition, and coordination, where value emerged through interaction and completion took shape through collective movement.

PLAY gave the project its active form: WORK's movement from labor to interface and LUCK's structure of probability and control became something visitors could inhabit for themselves. What it produced, in the end, was a temporary social field around the work, in which objects, collectibles, encounters, and outcomes were held together by participation.

Hanoia, the infamous Vietnamese lacquer house known for translating centuries-old craft into contemporary object design, brought a practice shaped by layering, polish, and exacting finish. That expertise gave the silver set a setting that carried the same attention to containment and presentation as the work itself, turning the holder into more than a vessel and making it part of the project's final articulation.

Yalkin's practice moved between portraiture and cultural documentation, paying attention to the relationship between artists and the contexts in which their work circulated. With clients including The New York Times Magazine, Time, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and The Atlantic, Yalkin brought a tonal rigor that carried through his portraits of people like Tilda Swinton, Daniel Craig, Denzel Washington, and Anne Hathaway, as well as through his personal series.

His photographs of Butcher formed part of the visual record of WORK, LUCK, PLAY, situating the project within the stages, environments, collaborators, and moments that brought it into view.

Collectible elements circulated through the fair and across Hong Kong, encouraging people to approach one another, compare what they had, and complete a set through conversation. In that sense, the partnership extended the project beyond the booth and into the city, while keeping the emphasis on participation and social connection. Starbucks brought scale, familiarity, and a public-facing infrastructure through which the logic of WORK, LUCK, PLAY could reach a broader audience.