Fo Tan Factories

Edible installation
Dark chocolate, toasted almonds, rice krispies, cornflakes, street map

Fotan is one of the few remaining industrial areas of Hong Kong, but is also known for its thriving art community that has taken over the industrial spaces as studios after industrial activities moved to mainland China. Some light manufacturing and production – often food, dim sum or baked goods – are still carried out in the high-rise blocks. As one wanders through, odours of grease and metal are punctuated by scents of roast meat or freshly baked rolls, truly an olfactory combination that relates to the identity and character of Fotan.

Fotan Factories is an installation that solidifies that essence in a sweet treat. All the industrial buildings are rebuilt in chocolate forms as a 3D scale model of the area. They are solid blocks as their original counterparts, but crunchy with a smooth taste of dark chocolate when eaten.

Encouraged to purchase the factories one by one – visitors turned into ephemeral property tycoons. Property speculation has become troublesome in Fotan, as increasingly, investors speculate with property in the name of profit while the art community struggles to sustain their lives as rent and property prices rocket. In the meantime, at least for a moment or two, these Fotan Factories sugar-coat the issue and allow a deferral of reality as they melt in our mouths.

Taste Mapping

Edible installation
Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate with hazelnuts, chocolate with strawberry yoghurt, white chocolate, chocolate with raisins, chocolate with cocoa nibs

One of the most commonly eaten foods, chocolate is made from cocoa beans, grown mostly in the tropics, while much of the production takes place elsewhere. Hence, there exists an entire range of chocolate with various flavours and fillings, only limited by the imagination, to cater to the tastes of consumers across the world

Most chocolate aficionados will swear by their favourite brand when asked which of them is the tastiest, but is there a difference between the products of one company or country to another? We broke up a collection of chocolate bars and assembled them into continents and landmasses, charting the countries of origin of different types of store-bought chocolate, creating an edible tasting board that visitors were invited to try.

Stripped from their elaborate packaging, it became almost impossible to discern the different chocolates from each other.

Everything with Chocolate

Chocolate in its most familiar form is the chocolate bar—the sweet, milky confection of our childhoods. Originally consumed as a frothy, bitter drink with spices such as chilli, or used for savoury dishes, it was only from the 16th century onwards that it was paired with sugar, milk and vanilla. With history as our muse, we imagined how chocolate could be used in different ways, from a pomelo salad to a chocolate risotto, on fish and in a mousse. Creating an experimental menu using chocolate as an ingredient for all the courses, we titillated the taste buds of our intrepid diners.