Of the half billion citizens in China, many are unaware of how being online can alienate their families. Family Care For Grassroots Community is a non-profit organisation dedicated to community building and family care. They wanted to communicate their call for spending less time online and more family time, in a ground-breaking way.

During the 2 months of the exhibition of our outdoor installation, an estimated audience of 1,800,000 was reached. 89% of them said they would like to spend less time online and more time with their families. Hundreds of TV stations, magazines, newspapers and websites reported the campaign, creating a hard hitting topic in China. On Weibo (Chinese Twitter), it also attracted 35,700 retweets and 8,296 comments. After the exhibition tour, the installation was collected and exhibited by Zendai MOMA.

We interviewed families that have poor relationships due to the overuse of computers and recorded true scenes in their families. We then made 115 figurines - crafted in the likeness of these family members, recreating the scenes of them overusing computers. Next, we set up a massive installation in an IT mall and put these figurines in sealed glass jars of different sizes. The glass jars with figurines were arranged in the form of a keyboard, just like all the real-life family members being isolated in the keys. We also extended the installation to outdoor plazas, hotels and metro stations.

Citizens aren’t aware of the isolation that computers bring to their families unless they see it. So we recreated these scenes for them, letting them feel that their family might be just like one of these isolated families.