Mitchell F. Chan
Workers’ Playtime
Oct 10 – Nov 21, 2026
Opening: Saturday, Oct 10, 3pm – 7pm
Artist-guided tour led by Mitchell F. Chan starts at 5pm
100 x 81 x 31 cm, 2026. © Mitchell F. Chan. Courtesy DE SARTHE.
DE SARTHE is pleased to present Workers’ Playtime, the first solo exhibition in Asia by Toronto-based conceptual digital media artist Mitchell F. Chan. The exhibition transforms the gallery into a game center, inviting viewers to interact with a new body of work consisting of interactive sculptures and video games. These new pieces extend Chan’s ongoing practice of using the rules and mechanics of games as a medium for social critique. These works are more than just entertainment; they are also traps. They invite viewers to engage as players, but ultimately lock them into roles as ineffectual laborers. Their rigged mechanisms deny the user’s agency and instead demand relentless work, exposing the inescapable loop of late capitalist labor. These are not metaphors so much as working demonstrations of a system functioning exactly as intended, of how making labor feel like play can reinforce the structure of that labor rather than offer an escape from it.
The exhibition features six distinct interactive sculptural works built from electromechanical pinball components and custom video game graphics pipelines. Each a colorful shadowbox depicting a different world of work: the office, the factory, the farm, the home, the livestream, the trading floor, invite visitors to take the flippers. Play them and you will find they are rigged: the skill is an illusion, the near-miss engineered.
At the center is a video game that soothes the player with a satisfying wash of points, motion and sound. As the game progresses, the player realizes that the playfield is not build for their own enjoyment; their inputs feed into a larger, autonomous system. These mechanisms are not metaphors so much as working demonstrations of a system functioning exactly as intended, of how making labor feel like play can reinforce the structure rather than offer an escape from it.
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DE SARTHE is a pioneering platform for boundary-pushing contemporary art from Asia. Founded in 1977, the gallery has also had an influential international presence in Modern and Post-war art since its establishment. In 2017, on its 40th anniversary, DE SARTHE moved into the heart of Hong Kong’s thriving southside art district.