In China, economic decline and fierce competition in the job market have led to an unhealthy campus recruitment market, one in which the employer has absolute authority. Applicants are disadvantaged, their privacy is not respected, and their personal time and experience are treated as worthless, as if applicants are no longer people but rather commodities for employers to profit from. Under these pressures, enduring great personal strain has ceased to be a choice for applicants, instead becoming something they must now do to survive.

The premise for my design is as follows: I have written the longest and most willfully absurd resume ever inscribed. Consisting of 6000+ words and recording its author’s experience from before the time of their birth, this ‘resume of a future graduate’ is a work of economic satire. My design presents its contents in a deliberately messy and disjointed fashion: narrowly-arranged strips of paper and fabric help create a claustrophobic visual space to evoke in the viewer a feeling of being trapped or imprisoned.

‘The Temptation of Prison’ is a counterattack against Chinese society, one which aims to criticize the disrespect with which graduates’ time, experience and privacy are treated, as well as to foster a deeper understanding of the situation they collectively face and to encourage graduates to reflect on what they truly want from their lives.