The Wheels Keep Turning

The Wheels Keep Turning 车轮滚滚
100cm (H) x 80cm (W) x 80cm (L)
2024
Artist: Rong Bao
Performer: Rong Bao

The Wheels Keep Turning is an interactive installation featuring a non-functional, toy-like washing machine with open ends that invites people to crawl inside. (his washing machine really spins) In the performance, Bao wear a professional woman’s outfit—white shirt, black suit pants, and rubber cleaning gloves—entering the machine and being continuously tumbled, symbolizing a Sisyphean, repetitive, and constrained representation of a woman’s life.

Washing, long associated with women’s domestic roles, becomes a metaphor for the invisible, endless labor society expects them to shoulder, both in the workplace and at home. The playful, childlike design of the washing machine contrasts sharply with the weight of the experience, reflecting how mundane tasks mask deeper societal pressures.

This piece critiques the neoliberal demands placed on women, caught in a cycle of endless expectations, with no escape from the "washing" of life. The audience is encouraged to participate, crawling into the machine to physically experience this constraining loop.