"MONEY
FACTORY: Economic Reality Game" is a 3,000 square foot exhibition space
that engages museum visitors to playfully yet critically explore a contemporary
economic predicament faced by Taiwan’s young people: the high cost of living
the “good life” and what it would take for them to literally afford it.
Part
economic reality game and part communal crafting space, visitors are invited to
sit together and cut and glue stacks of simulated Taiwanese currency in order
to “make money” (one year’s worth of a young person’s wages, or roughly
NT$300,000) which they can then “spend” by purchasing souvenir cards that
represent desirable life goals: starting a family, buying a car, buying a
house, opening a small business, etc.
Upon
finishing their stacks and purchasing their items, the collective stacks of
money are displayed in the installation space much like an accumulated bank
vault, and becomes a physical representation for an abstract thing: economic
labor and time made “real” in a compressed and simulated timeframe. It is a
visual result of all the people that have worked in the space and created a
collective representation of labor.
Long
interested in issues of economy and labor, this project directly relates to my
desire to create spaces in which the average person can reckon with and come to
terms with local and global economic conditions. Money Factory, although
appearing to be a playful installation by using a cut-and-glue exercise similar
to a children’s game, becomes a way to tackle deep-rooted fears and desires
that many young Taiwanese face.
With
stagnating wages, the shift in the Taiwanese economy away from the factory
production prevalent in the post-WWII years, the desire for a happy and
convenient lifestyle fueled by cheap goods imported from overseas, and the high
cost of an achievable middle class life (house, car, family, etc.), Money
Factory also creates a social space where visitors can ask themselves what they
desire and if it’s possible to achieve these goals given limited resources.
By not providing easy answers and presenting a
game that reflects actual price structures, Money Factory becomes a public
forum for discussion and the poses the question “is this a viable system?” And
if the answer is no, what is next? (More)
