Terms of Trade Booklet

Terms of Trade

Mo Tong Yang From 17th century tea and porcelain to contemporary supply chains and social media feeds, China has been encountered through objects that circulate globally. These objects do not simply reflect this country; they produce ideas about it. Terms of Trade consists of lacquered cardboard boxes imposed with imagery assembled from export paintings, propaganda posters, news media and social media feeds. By transforming disposable packaging with lacquer — a material historically associated with permanence, value, and decoration — Terms of Trade draws connections between crafts techniques and contemporary systems of circulation, asking how images of China are produced, consumed, and continually reconstructed.

Terms of Trade

Exhibition View

These objects form a constructed living room, a site of display and reception. The arrangement references chinoiserie interiors in European palaces and aristocratic houses, where Chinese objects were staged as signs of taste, fantasy, and global connection. By setting these boxes in a domestic space, I want to invite people to notice how the meanings we attach to objects are never just personal.

They are shaped by histories of trade, image-making, and cultural projections.

Terms of Trade

L 985 × W 385 × H 612

Terms of Trade

L 480 × W 350 × H 340

Terms of Trade

L 370 × W 370 × H 815

Terms of Trade

L 100 × W 220 × H 360

Terms of Trade

L 800 × W 600 × H 240

Terms of Trade

Surface Details

Terms of Trade

Research Booklet

Terms of Trade

Scanned photographs from The New York Times mentioning ‘China’ published between Janurary and March 2026.

Part of the source images used for creating the illustrations on the boxes.

Research Booklet