Figuring features over one hundred string figures made of face-mask elastic and pinned across the walls of three galleries.

This project is inspired by the game of string figures, or cat’s cradles, which continues to be a popular game in primary school playgrounds. Children make Jacob’s Ladder, Cat’s Whiskers, A Broom, A Teacup or many other figures. Formed with mask elastic and presented randomly on the walls of the gallery, Bufardeci’s string figures are not complete. They come from attempts to make something fully formed but they end up tense, slack and entangled.

Images by Shelley Xue