Text from "Smart Order" (2023) at 69 Art Campus, Beijing 

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In this wall piece, a set of fire-prevention posters that promote the safe charging of two-wheeled electric vehicles are neatly pasted on the wall at a position slightly above the line of sight. In the center of this set of posters, six Chinese characters, “越努力 越幸运” (The harder you work, the luckier you get), are cut out of the posters and removed from the wall. This simple but destructive process has caused damages to the well-kept wall surface, leaving adhesive marks and slightly peeled paint coat.

In recent years, in order to minimize accidents caused by fires sparked during the charging of two-wheeled electric vehicles, the administrations of some Chinese cities have put up a number of fire-safety publicity posters, similar to the one appeared in the work, in public places. The majority of these posters use images of electric vehicles burning in flames as their main visual, accompanied by alarming slogans such as "生死100秒“(100 seconds between life and death), in an attempt to warn users of electric vehicles to use charging equipment safely. The propaganda does not only educate the electric vehicle owners, but also tends toemphasize the potential danger that the vehicles might bring to those non-users within the community. As aresult of the usage of such disturbing images and texts mentioned above, the posters indirectly describe two-wheeled electric vehicles and their users (mostly middle-and lower-class workers who reside in the city) as disadvantaged groups that pose a potential safety crisis to the community.

The six-word slogan “越努力 越幸运” (The harder you work, the luckier you get), recognizable only by its outline, is technically an illogical and erroneous proposition. However, it has been widely quoted by China’smass media in recent years as a self-motivating proverb with the flavor of the time. In the artist’s view, such consolatory guidance for the working class may seem to be an encouragement to the hard-working individual workers, but ultimately, it functions as the justification of the social status held by the privileged class.

For the artist, collaging these two types of public propagandas that target the working class metaphorically exposes the society’s double-sided attitude towards the bottom class laborers; that is, the tacit approval of systematic discrimination against the group, and on the other hand, the promotion of consolatory guidance that torpifies the mind of the group.