Culture cast through glass

Yang and her team started without any technical manuals or process documentation. Every step, from raw material ratios and temperature control to mold-making, required trial and error.

"Fail, come back, experiment again," she says.

Yang burned through $2.36 million with thousands of failed pieces piling up. "The technology was completely new to us. Of course, there would be difficulties," Yang says. "But if people elsewhere in the world could do it, if our own ancestors once mastered it, then it wasn't impossible. I just hadn't found the way yet."

Three and a half years later, they uncovered the lost-wax casting technique. "It was not merely a technical revival but an opening for new possibilities for Chinese liuli art within the contemporary art landscape," says Yang.