Italian artist Fabio Roncato creates works not by painting with a brush, but by allowing nature itself to make the mark. He invites forces such as earth, water, gravity, and friction to take the lead—guiding natural materials into gestures, traces, and imprints.

In his video work The Stars’ Engine, waves and starlight pulse in the darkness, forming a cosmic rhythm that unfolds like an endless engine. It is a meditation on the unstoppable movements of nature—vast, indifferent, and eternal.

His sculpture Momentum captures a single fleeting motion frozen in aluminum. What we see is not a depiction of energy, but the energy itself—the physical trace of an unseen force made solid.

The Biennale’s theme, Neighbors of Civilization – Somewhere over the Yellow Sea, proposes a fluid vision of civilization—not one drawn along fixed borders, but shaped by movement, transformation, and connection. Roncato’s works evoke this sensibility, reminding us of seas like the Mediterranean and the Yellow Sea—not as dividing lines, but as ever-shifting flows.

At the threshold where nature and humanity, time and material converge, his practice invites us to rethink what it means to be neighbors—across geographies, epochs, and systems of knowledge.

To stand before his work is not simply to observe,
but to feel—with slowness and depth—
the lingering presence of time shaped by nature.

A quiet, powerful dialogue
between nature and civilization begins.