WORK / LIVE 干活 Li Zhan 李占

Arrow Factory presented I Like Round Things, a project by Li Zhan 李占 developed with the Social Sensibility Research Institute for the Work, Live series.

The installation is a maypole-like arrangement of materials taken from Li Zhan’s workplace and private life. Cascading balls of multicoloured yarn unravel into carefully placed cardboard tubes; two-tone balls of modelling clay are scattered among finely sliced vegetables; and her personal collection of “non-conforming” components from the factory traces a constellation on the adjacent wall. Every object was either gathered little by little at her assembly-line job or carries a strong emotional association.

Made with Alessandro Rolandi and Zhao Tianji, the work channels personal nostalgia into an intimate collection of round objects – a quiet, slow act of gathering that unwittingly charts the passing of time.

Li Zhan (born 1986, Beijing) was in her eighth year on the assembly line at Bernard Controls, joining components into electronic circuits and training new employees to do the same.

Text adapted from the Arrow Factory introduction.