Time Garden
Sep 13, 2026
Time Garden grew out of my experience studying and working across cultures. Growing up in China, I was taught that hard work leads to success, even when it means sacrificing sleep. Yet economic uncertainty and demanding work schedules have shown that effort does not always bring stability or prosperity.
After completing graduate school in the United States, I began to notice that longer working hours across countries and cultures do not necessarily correspond to greater economic prosperity. This realization inspired me to compare how much time people in different countries spend sleeping, resting, and working, and to examine these patterns alongside national economic indicators such as total GDP and GDP per capita.
Through these comparisons, Time Garden explores the subtle and often unequal relationship between individual effort, time for rest, and collective prosperity.
Draft
In the early stages, I planned to use a consistent visual language—the same flower-and-leaf structure—to represent every country.
During the data collection process, I first consulted the OECD database. However, because its data covered a wide range of years, I instead gathered national time-use surveys published by individual countries within the past three years. Based on geographic diversity and different levels of economic development, I selected ten representative countries for comparison.
Visually, I use plant growth as a metaphor for how people distribute their time. The roots represent sleep—a period of rest and replenishment—while the leaves growing above the ground represent the hours people spend awake.
Final
Ultimately, I decided to use each country’s national flower to represent its economic development. I began to imagine the global economy as a flourishing garden—diverse, interconnected, and shaped by different conditions. A single geometric circle could communicate scale, but it could not fully express this sense of vitality and abundance. The varied forms and colors of the flowers make the data more visually engaging while giving each country a distinct identity.