Taiwanese-born artist Ting Tong Chang spent a week in Pittsburgh in 2024, where
the city’s deep labor history—especially the 1892 Homestead Strike—inspired his newest work, The Hidden Shift. Created with local filmmakers Alex Abrahams and Benny Shaffer, the project blends film noir, documentary, and museum life into a twisting metanarrative about work, power, and the creative class.
Set in a fictional macaroni factory where the owner turns up dead, the film unfolds alongside a “making-of” documentary that features Mattress Factory staff not only acting in the production but going about their real daily work. The result blurs the lines between performance and labor, art and workplace.
Visitors to the exhibition encounter remnants of the film set—painted backdrops, props, lighting—that place them inside the story itself. As the film’s two narratives collapse into each other, The Hidden Shift uses humor, self-awareness, and historical echoes to invite viewers to rethink capitalism, creativity, and the meaning of work today.