The Each Number Equals One Inhalation and One Exhalation installation is a work in progress which began in 2016 and by 2018 consisted of a hundred individual works. It is underpinned by the artists’ interest in capturing the two-dimensional projections and registers inherent in the world of the economy and labour in architectural/sculptural form. Its immediate forerunner was their The Prophets installation, presented at the 2014 Montreal Biennial and the Istanbul Biennial of 2016.

The series in the Banco de España Collection comprises seven small sculptures whose forms refer to the aesthetics of Russian constructivism. The dialogue between them produces a graphic depiction of human productivity from the mid-19^th century to the present. They allude to different themes of interest, from the evolution of specific aspects of the productive economy to the psychology of work and the handling of working time and work-spaces. Some of the graphics exemplify the time and motion studies conducted on workers to improve production processes at the start of the 20^th century, and others present data on the impact of organisational, psychological and technological factors on efficiency.

The artists use simple techniques that allow them to compare their artisan models in a fun way with the authoritative dimensions of the original graphics drawn from scientific publications. They thus explore how graphic representation transforms complex ideas on human work in systematised ways. That includes the relationship between diagrammatic spaces and mental space, i.e. how graphics create ways of thought.

With the title Each Number Equals One Inhalation and One Exhalation, the artists seek to create a tension between the reduction of human work to quantified units — ‘each number’ and ‘equals’ refer to the act or process of counting, measuring, quantifying, etc. — and, in turn remind the viewer that those units represent human beings — ‘one inhalation and one exhalation’ refers to the basic bodily function of breathing —.

The title of the series can also allude to the household economy which, according to the Russian economist Bulgakov, can be reduced to a metabolic process similar to breathing in and out. The production process is inhalation, while consumption is equivalent to exhalation, and between them they make up the economic cycle.

Using those graphics and diagrams, Ibghy and Lemmens question how productivity, efficiency and job performance condition workers, and how their lives end up serving those notions imposed by globalised capitalism. 

Yolanda Romero Gómez