Visiting the Republic of China had a great impact on me, not only because of its fascinating culture and history, but also because I can now see a socioeconomic phenomenon that was once invisible to me. I discovered the nature of exploitation hidden inside the commercial relationships. The investor gives a certain amount of money to buy a labor force, and pressures the workers to work more hours than usual, many times paying them even less than the minimum wage. Nobody is really indispensable in a country of over one billion inhabitants. As a consequence of excessive labor hours, families are becoming more isolated, where the “only child” grows up without the appropriate care from his parents. This unlimited thirst for profits goes beyond values, and what is worse, the Chinese are destroying the ecosystem in which their future generations will live. More and more Chinese people are adopting our Western culture, forgetting their ancestral heritage and methodologies. They dream of buying new cars and wearing foreign clothing brands; now they not only produce these products, they want to buy them too. The illusion of progress is changing their “Long life” for a lifestyle that is short, solitary, unhealthy and stressful.
Isn’t it ironic that the great multinational corporations produce their collections in a country where everything is “cloned”? A country where “©opyright” laws don’t exist? All of this is done to lower production costs. A big part of my work uses pieces of wood as a base. The color and texture of each piece of wood is unique. In this same way I perceive Chinese people, they may look alike, but each one of them is a unique human being. I also work with photographs, photocopies, and repetition of images, symbols and different printing techniques.
For many years I have criticized China, thinking that all they produce are cheap copies of the originals. What I wasn’t aware of, is that nearly 80% of the things I use and consume daily are made in China. Almost everything that surrounds us has the energy of their work and the sacrifice of their people.
Through my work I realized that these millions of people that work in factories daily are only processing orders. However, they are not robots, they are human beings that feel, cry, love and dream.
China is a nation that is growing silently and incredibly fast. After every day that passes by, I am still amazed by their underappreciated intelligence. Little by little the “fortune cookie” monster is taking over the other half of the world.
“In honor of all the women in the world who do not have the privilege that I have of expressing myself freely”
