MAP Office: “The Oven of Straw” draws a sharp parallel between the productive systems of agriculture and the sterile accumulation of capital. With a straw exterior resembling both an oven and a bank, and an interior that functions like a cinema, Hong Kong-based artist/architect duo, MAP Office present an installation first conceived for the Kiev Biennial in 2012, now updated for a second showing in China. In the video installation at the center of the piece, films from various historical moments that touch upon the production of grain run side by side in a melancholic loop. Documentary footage and clips from both propaganda films and feature films rub together in a two-channel video that pits the labor of the farm worker against the speculative activity of the trader or banker. Featured directors including Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, and China’s own Ping He, while a new Part III to the film has been added, titled, &ldqu o;When Banks Reaped Losses.” The whole installation examines the relationship between films, farms, and financial institutions, and takes a serious look at wheat as the original Marxian commodity.