0037
2016
0037 functions as a symbolic act of restitution to the land and society of Guatemala for the violence and upheaval resulting from U.S. and United Fruit Company intervention. The work proposes a gesture of return, an effort to restore what was extracted or stolen, while acknowledging the impossibility of undoing history, as well as the irony and complexities of economic structures.
The photographic documentation consists of three narrative images: the first depicts the banana at grocery store; the second captures the moment it is placed in the soil; and the third shows the banana after it has decomposed, leaving only the Chiquita sticker intact.
On December 6, 2016, a export banana from Guatemala was purchased for $ 0.69 with Guatemalan capital at the Fred Meyer supermarket in Portland, Oregon (United States), property of The Kroger Company.
24 hours later, the banana returned to Guatemalan lands, after travel more than 5,000 km by air. Two days later was taken to the San Francisco farm, in La Gomera, Escuintla (owned by Bandegua, subsidiary Dole in the country); place where the fruit was grown, harvested and selected.
7 days later, on December 16, the fruit returned to be part of the land from where he started his journey to the United States more than a month ago, being a green banana.
