Polylactic acid on stone. 41x27cm.
This sign is one of the most diatopic gestures in global hand culture 🤞. In many Western contexts crossed fingers mean “good luck”, a small portable charm performed with the hand. In other places the same gesture indicates a “harmless lie”, a promise made with an escape clause — people cross their fingers behind their back to reduce the moral weight of a commitment.
In Nordic countries it still carries a faint apotropaic meaning, a miniature cross meant to ward off misfortune. In parts of Latin America it can signal complicity or a shared secret. In several Asian cultures, where the gesture is not traditionally used, it is interpreted as a foreign symbol of hope imported through media. There are also marginal contexts where crossed fingers acquire a subtle erotic undertone, functioning as a metaphor for intimacy or tension between two bodies rather than as an explicit sexual sign.
The sculpture rests on a single finger, giving the whole piece a sense of instability and precarious balance. This physical condition makes the hand resemble a human figure striving to keep itself standing, suspended in a moment of fragile equilibrium.