One by one to one million

This series of work is an exploration of the meaningless things we do in order to have a meaningful life. 

Each piece is inspired by a different occasion in Mau’s childhood where he was directed into carrying out repetitive and oppressive tasks. The apparent aim of which were to make him a more rounded and conforming individual. 

Indeed, the show’s title, ‘One by one to one million’ takes its inspiration from one particular event. During an Easter break, the nuns who taught at the Catholic school which Mau attended, instructed him to write out all the numbers, one by one, from zero to a million, by hand. 

The obsessive, clinical and time-consuming construction of the pieces in the show - which relies on hand-cutting thousands of lines and painstakingly peeling away individual strips of paper – is a reflection upon this and other similar experiences. 

However, they aren’t solely a means of addressing these trials from his own upbringing; but they also aim to bring into question more generally our relationship with time, and how we seek to create and find meaning in our lives.

Text by John Sewell