Banana Craze & Cultivate

Forensic Architecture is pleased to be contributing work from its project Dispossession and the Memory of the Earth: Land Dispossession in Nueva Colonia to the exhibition Banana Craze at the Metropolitan State University of Denver Center for Visual Art.

DENVER, COLORADO – CVA brings two extraordinary exhibitions to view with the opening of Banana Craze, a look at how one fruit has shaped the culture and environment of a continent, and Cultivate, an exploration of food access in Colorado. These two exhibitions examine the food industry through distinct lenses with one focusing on the devastating effects of the banana monoculture and the other focusing on the daily practices of food production and consumption locally. Combined, the exhibitions fuel a necessary dialogue about the way our world centers on the mass production and consumption of food at the expense of culture, environment, and human health.

Banana Craze unites nine contemporary artists whose work examines the banana production of Caribbean and Latin American countries. As the fourth most important food crop in the world, the banana dominates food production in Latin America where they are grown on large mono-crop plantations run mostly by three multi-national corporations. These works range from investigations of human-rights violations, recordings of lost biodiversity, and highlights of the effects of pesticides on health and environment, to a satirical reenactment of the origins of the banana monoculture. The works in this exhibition bear evidence in a stinging indictment against those who have acted in the interest of profit over humanity, resulting in profound inequities between producers and consumers.

The artists in Banana Craze reflect on the dramatic footprint that the banana industry has left in both the natural and social ecosystems of banana producing nations since the beginning of the 20th Century until today. Exhibiting artists include María José Argenzio, Julián Chams, Claudia Claremi, Milko Delgado, Óscar Figueroa Chávez, Leonardo González, Rachelle Mozman Solano, Daniela Serruya Kohn, and the research agency Forensic Architecture. Banana Craze is curated by Dr. Juanita Solano and Dr. Blanca Serrano.

Installation images by Anthony Camera 2022