A One-man Factory 一人工廠

A One-Man Factory, 2012

24-hour ceaseless sculpture making at home

Mixed Media and single channel video

Dimension variable

24-hour documentation
12:00am - 12:00am, 9-7-2013:

In A One-Man Factory (2012), Tang Kwok-hin locked himself in his home studio for a full 24 hours — from midnight to midnight — and produced one sculpture per hour using only materials found on site. The result is 24 sculptures created through relentless, assembly-line-style production within a domestic environment, documented in a single-channel video and presented alongside the accumulated objects.

Blurring the boundaries between individual artistic creation and industrial manufacturing, the work examines the tension between “invention” and “creation.” As concepts of efficiency, productivity, and commercialization increasingly overlap with artistic practice, Tang questions whether turning art into a continuous, high-output process drains it of meaning — or whether new possibilities and stories can emerge from exhaustion.

By transforming his living space into a recycling factory and subjecting himself to the physical and mental demands of nonstop production, the artist condenses the rhythms of daily life and industrial labor into a single durational performance. The sculptures, made from everyday detritus and altered household items, carry traces of fatigue, repetition, and improvisation.