Beijing Project n.01 Andrea Nacciarriti

Andrea Nacciarriti’s project turns the factory’s production model – supplier, process, customer – into a poetic action. The wooden crates used to pack the factory’s products become containers of memory and information.

He asked the employees to write a short text about their working experience – not only at Bernard Controls, but throughout their lives. They were free to sign it or not, and to add or leave out their address and phone number. The notebooks with these private thoughts, together with a few small objects or tools that reminded them of their working time, were placed in the crates, which were then sealed and sent out of the factory.

In the village of Caochangdi, a local tricycle delivered them to people chosen at random among those who live and work there. They opened the crates, read what was inside and decided whether or not to get in touch with the workers, or to send their thoughts and responses to Bernard Controls.

This non-functional, non-profit mode of production gives poetic value to the workers’ thoughts and memories and shares them with others. It gives the artistic gesture a fully immaterial quality and turns it into an experiment in social practice.

Andrea Nacciarriti’s website