#466 Tang Ping

The title is Mandarin for "lying flat", and the term describes a Chinese trend of personal rejection of societal pressures to overwork and over-achieve. The participants choose to lower their professional commitment and economic ambitions, simplify their goals and prioritize psychological health over economic materialism. It is believed to have inspired the phrase "quiet quitting", which became popular in the United States in 2022 and has been described as a passive-aggressive resistance movement.

This work is done by pushing small pebbles found outside my studio through the wet filler with a scrape.

This work is part of a small series I call Resistance. They recall different work-related ways of protesting against difficult working conditions. But they also reflect a more general discontent with capitalist ideology and a refusal to be a productive member of the consumerist society.

In Swedish, there is an expression of throwing pebbles into the machine [kasta grus i maskineriet], which means sabotaging something by being difficult or introducing complications. We are all pushed along by the relentless machinery of capitalism, but by not complying with every command and pressing our heels in the dirt, we can at least produce some discernible traces. Ultimately, it might slow it down or create a possibility for change.