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A demure palette of rose, lavender and ocher belies the dark themes of Fernando Laposse’s new installation Clash Avocado at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Images of the destruction were stitched together into a 137-foot-long tapestry that wraps a gallery in the museum’s Triennial, telling the fruit’s shocking story. “It’s often seen as a healthy, ethical thing,” explains Laposse, a Mexican designer whose work explores the commercialization of native corn and agave. “But if you look at the avocado destroying everything on you, it’s crazy.”
Laposse first became interested in the crop in 2019, when he was investigating disruptions to monarch butterfly migration. He learned that in the Mexican state of Michoacan, forests were illegally cleared to make way for avocado orchards. When a local environmental activist he planned to interview disappears, Labos begins delving into the history of the popular produce, a phenomenon he likens to the drug trade. “When you have something that makes that much money, it attracts all kinds of higher-level crime.”
Driven by strong year-round demand for guacamole, avocados have become what Labos calls “green gold,” growing rapidly and profits soaring. It has brought a spate of violence to agricultural regions – some of it at the hands of cartels that use the business as a means of making money and laundering money. All the while, this trade reduces biodiversity as easily spread breeds like Hass are prioritized.
Rapos’ tapestries, dyed with avocado scraps from a guacamole vendor near his studio and a bit of marigold, depict battles, protests, headlines, and even smartphones printed with the recipes that power the market .Several residents and activists from the town of Chelan, which resists agricultural trends, appear in Textiles and avocado heritage, Rapos’ accompanying documentary. Also on display are a chaise longue upholstered in the same fabric and a cabinet wrapped in avocado skin coated with beeswax. “This isn’t just a problem with avocados,” Labos said. “It’s about realizing the cost to the environment and people of having fruit or anything else delivered to you in record time.” As of April 7; ngv.vic.gov.au —Hannah Martin
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