On the occasion of the signing of the optimized Switzerland–China Free Trade Agreement, the Embassy of Switzerland in China is hosting a celebratory gathering. The upgraded agreement includes important developments in the areas of trade and investments, but also environment and sustainability, labour rights, and rules of origin.

The artwork contained in the machine and available for symbolic purchase is titled Desk Ornament (Work Won’t Love You Back), Beijing Assembly, 2026. It is composed of artificial flowers and letter beads spelling the title of the work inside a transparent acrylic glass container.

At first, the flowers suggest an immediate connection to nature. Yet they are mass produced artificial flowers that neither grow nor decay. They remain reproducible commodities. In this way, the work brings a familiar image of nature into relation with questions of ecology, material consumption, production and artificial permanence.

The phrase “Work Won’t Love You Back”, borrowed from the title of Sarah Jaffe’s book of the same name, interrupts the decorative promise of the flowers. It points to the emotional investment that work can demand and to the imbalance of a relationship into which people bring time, attention, identity, as well as physical and mental energy.

In this context, Desk Ornament resonates with several of the questions considered by the negotiating partners and offers a point of reflection on exchange, sustainability, equity, and the conditions through which objects, labour, and value circulate between Switzerland and the People’s Republic of China.