Made in China Diary

Made in China Diary is a project initiated by the Swiss designer pair Anaïde Gregory Studio. It is first and foremost a travel log retracing a five-month journey through manufacturing China.

Adopting a witty and curious approach, the Swiss designer pair Anaïde Gregory Studio gaze upon the Chinese economic miracle.

Anaïde and Gregory give us a new look at local manufacturing processes, ranging from modest family operations to factory-cities resulting from success stories unlike anything seen in our region of the World. But they also grasp the dark side of this miracle, the unbridled urbanization, the negligible value of human life in the global production chain.

They reveal how the Chinese have learnt by producing for the rest of the World. The textile market is delocalizing, automated high-tech facilities are now replacing a labor force that is no longer cheap enough. Throughout their journey, they discover how the products and services of tomorrow are made today, exposing the reach of this new model that revolutionizes the way we consume, based on new production and quality standards.

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary. Top: Shunde, the world’s largest furniture producer, factories covering 10km of highway. Above: Datang. Datang is a city of 200,000 where everything revolves around sock manufacturing: the supply chain is located at the city’s outskirts, with thread and machine producers and logistics and distribution companies, allowing Datang and surrounding areas to churn out over one billion pairs of socks annually

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Datang. Anaïde Gregory Studio meet Mrs. Zhang who invites them for a tour of the small factory she owns with her husband. At their family house, Mr. Zhang takes the designers to their chicken coop where he pulls a curtain right next to the coop to give access to his micro-factory: about 20 high-tech machines are spinning away in a deafening sound and spitting out piles of socks onto the dirt floor, waiting to be packed away. Everyone in Datang lives off the sock industry, the machines running 24/7 in the courtyards and cellars of people’s houses

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Donguan. Agie-Charmille, one of the jewels of Swiss industry, let us into their Guangdong facility. The company provides high precision machine tools for mobile telephone manufacturers in the area. The machine tools, which are designed and produced in Switzerland, are used, among other things, for making the plastic injection molds used to produce phone and tablet cases. After a brief presentation on the importance of their technology for the plastic industry, company staff invites Anaïde and Gregory to visit one of their clients in the area, an investor from Hong Kong who produces molds and small plastic injection parts. In a recently-completed wing of the plant, they meet six employees in white blouses in charge of programming a futuristic production line: a giant robotic arm on 30-m rails loads, distributes and replaces steel blocks and tools on a production line consisting of about a dozen machines

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Foshan. In Foshan, small productions are spontaneously setup in garages along streets, so that while walking around the outskirts of towns, you might stumble upon families polishing stainless steel casts used to mass produce injected plastic products. independent craftspeople chain-produce parts in industrial quantities using secondhand machines often purchased from european factories

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Foshan

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Jindezhen. Called the porcelain capital, Jingdezhen survives today on the remnants of an industry that did not take the technological turn in the 1990’s

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Yiwu. Yiwu is home to the largest wholesale market in china. over 70,000 companies display their wares in tiny booths overloaded with inexpensive goods bought and sold by the container-full. divided into product-line districts, the market is an impressive city within a city

Anaïde Gregory Studio, Made in China Diary, Zhuji. Freshwater pearl farmers in Zhuji produce 73% of current World production