Gears of labour (triptych)

Monoprints using bicycle gears, block printing paint, collage on Arches 300gsm archival cotton paper.
56 x 76 cm each, 2018

“They said, losing in gambling is better. There is still something left. But for us, we are still selling our labour. I think we must get paid, if not much, we have to get some. But I didn’t get any money. It risks in every aspect. Going to work in Taiwan one time is worse than losing at gambling ten times.”

This quote is from a young female worker in a bicycle factory in Taiwan, taken from a documentary on factory labour conditions there. The Thai text at the base of each work references parts of the worker’s quote above. I have focused on bicycles in this work because they are one of the most exploitative industries, and Taiwan is a major manufacturer of them. Many of the workers are Thai women lured there with false promises of a better life. To many of us, a bicycle symbolises freedom and leisure, in contrast to the bondage of the young women who live in compounds near or within the factories to make these bikes in unacceptable conditions.

The prints were made from bicycle gears, whose beautiful shapes also resemble cogs in a machine. Printing from these gears, I experimented with repetitive and tiring labour in 10-hour shifts, making numerous iterative works in an effort to comprehend the level of exhaustion in a factory environment, before settling on the three shown here. The cogs were reprinted many times without reinking to reference tiredness and life ebbing away.