The Bare Minimum

The Chinese term bailan（摆烂）describes an attitude toward life in which one does only the bare minimum in work and daily existence. It emerged within a social reality shaped by overpopulation, unemployment, unaffordable housing, and instability. Under the pressure of expectation, competition, and exhaustion, many young people turn toward bailan not simply out of laziness, but because hard work no longer appears to promise a future. In this sense, bailan can be understood as a rational attempt to withdraw from society.

At the same time, our society endlessly glorifies effort. We celebrate lines like: I try so hard I have not eaten all day; I try so hard I have not slept in three days; I try so hard I feel like I have been hit by a truck; I try so hard I am dying. Effort is praised to such an extreme that if one is trying without destroying the normal rhythm of life, it is no longer considered enough.

But sacrifice and time do not have a direct positive correlation with results. Because of this, “trying hard” can never be objectively defined. If effort itself cannot be measured in any stable way, then neither can its opposite. The so-called bailan, the “bare minimum,” is equally impossible to determine. It is not a fixed category, but a label produced by social judgment.

My logic is to fill the necessary process with the intention of achieving the most complete result within my capability.

This project consists of four transformable objects: a bedsheet, a quilt, a pillow, and a book. The first three function as labels commonly associated with the so-called bailan person: lying in bed, withdrawing, refusing productivity. The book represents what a bailan person does not need: knowledge, ambition, and self-improvement, qualities reserved for those who try.

I completed this project two weeks in advance, producing three times the output of my peers. Therefore, this work is not only about bailan as a concept. From concept to production to final presentation, the entire process becomes part of the artistic result.

I do not work hard. I do not bailan. I am the process.
I work hard. I bailan. I am the outcome.
I have no restriction, and I have no freedom. I become. I exist.