Mitchell F. Chan Rigs Pinball Machines in Workers' Playtime
The Toronto artist's first solo show in Asia, at DE SARTHE in Hong Kong, sets six electromechanical sculptures in shadowboxes depicting different kinds of work.
- When
- Oct. 10 to Nov. 21, 2026
- Where
- DE SARTHE, Hong Kong
Mitchell F. Chan's Workers' Playtime, the artist's first solo exhibition in Asia, is on view at DE SARTHE in Hong Kong through Nov. 21. It fills the gallery with six interactive sculptures built from electromechanical pinball parts, plus a video game. In Daddy's Home (2026), a woman holding a baby looks out a window as a man drives toward the house, and two pinballs on an inverted V-shaped track roll toward each other but never clear the peak. Watch Chan's opening-day clip of Girl Talk below.
Chan's opening-day clip of Girl Talk (2026). Via Instagram.
Each sculpture's shadowbox shows a different system of labor: corporate, industrial, agricultural, domestic, "suggestive live-streaming" and finance, according to the gallery's press release. In Cliffhangers, set in an open-plan office, a tiny gap between ball and target keeps every shot out of reach. In Roundtrippin', about finance, the ball strikes targets on its own while the player controls nothing. The gallery calls the works "traps."
A digital pinball game, listed as Worker's Playtime: Luxury Edition, sits beside a sofa and keeps playing itself once the player stops. The show coincides with Chan's essay "Categories of the Art Game," published by Rhizome on Oct. 14.
Chan, a Toronto-based conceptual digital media artist, made Winslow Homer's Croquet Challenge (2022) and the short games Zantar, Ladyboss and Moonboi (2025), which Chan's site lists as coming to Steam and itch.io. DE SARTHE and Nguyen Wahed show Chan's work at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
For more reading, see Mitchell Chan's Insert Coin(s) suite is coming to Steam, The art of pinball and DE SARTHE's exhibition page.
Workers' Playtime at DE SARTHE, Hong Kong, with Cliffhangers, Girl Talk, Punch-Out!!, Roundtrippin' and the digital game. Courtesy the artist and DE SARTHE.
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