This essay was first published in NGV Triennial 2023, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
The materials that form infrastructure, buildings, furniture and objects are imbued with the social and economic forces most dominant during the period of their production. The availability of materials and labour is influenced by the prevailing political economy – in a global society, where goods are traded internationally, distance, coupled with rapid communication and enhanced mobility, has created an environment that, while characterised by connection, conceals conditions of production and decouples the origins of materials from the sites of eventual consumption. As a result of this disconnect there is increased potential for opportunistic parties to exploit less powerful organisms – both human and non-human – and irreparably disrupt longstanding and sustainable ecosystems.
Interrogating the networked origins of materials to render them visible through his work, Mexican designer Fernando Laposse reinterprets traditional materials and techniques to communicate the historical and cultural conditions of their locality. Often working in collaboration with local artisans to advocate for the sustainable use of plants indigenous to Mexico, Laposse has developed furniture, objects, exhibitions and installations using materials such as loofah, agave, sisal and corn to highlight the inherent qualities of the materials and develop contemporary applications for their use. His projects are the result of iterative applied research and provide critical commentary on the changed economic and social conditions associated with modern Mexico.
Continuing this line of enquiry, Laposse’s project Conflict Avocados, 2023, produced for exhibition at the NGV Triennial 2023, couples design with material research to interrogate the recent history of the avocado plant and the ramifications of its rapid increase in popularity. Through the various mediums used in the project Laposse spotlights the human and ecological casualties of Mexico’s avocado industry.
Native to Mexico, avocados have traditionally been grown sustainably and formed a reliable food source in the region; however, global demand for avocados, particularly from the United States, has altered the rate at which the plant is farmed, resulting in ecological destruction, violence and civil unrest. In the state of Michoacán, where the majority of avocados are grown for export, cartels take advantage of the lucrative trade in the fruit, engaging in illegal logging, violent land grabbing and intimidation to garner control of the profitable avocado industry. This has led to the avocado being categorised as a ‘conflict’ commodity, as referenced in the title of Laposse’s work. It has been reported that avocado pickers have been forced to work without pay, as well as been threatened for working on family-run farms, and that freight drivers who transport the fruit for export are regularly intercepted by cartel groups and their cargo either destroyed or stolen. With the Michoacán industry corrupted, the now-global appetite for avocado is driving mass deforestation; the loss of critical habitat; an unsustainable increase in water usage for irrigating plantations; and a glut of underripe avocado fruit being harvested, exported and wasted. Conflict Avocados articulates the interconnected and global nature of the avocado trade, the scale of the industry, and the ways it impacts the local community and surrounding ecosystem in Michoacán.
Together, the furniture, textile and film that comprise the work reference the experience of the people of Cherán, a Purépecha indigenous community in Michoacán, and the monarch butterfly, an endangered species that migrates to Michoacán’s now-threatened forests each winter. In 2011 the town of Cherán achieved independence after a women-led uprising against cartel-controlled loggers who were illegally clearing the forest for avocado plantations. Arming themselves to defend the forest and their families, the townspeople established a network of guarded checkpoints along roads into the town and a community police force that now patrols the land for illegal activity. Laposse’s The avocado legacy. Deforestation, revolution, a new beginning, 2023, is a 40-metre-long tapestry depicting the story of Cherán and placing it within the context of global avocado consumption. Constructed from fabrics dyed using yellow cempazúchitl – the marigold flowers that decorate shrines during the Day of the Dead festival – and the pink pigment from avocado seeds, the tapestry illustrates the intertwined stories of the monarch butterfly, the avocado trade and the struggles and triumphs of Cherán’s people.
Constructed using the same textile fabrication as The avocado legacy, Deforestation, revolution, a new beginning, Laposse’s Resting place, 2023, which takes the form of a day bed, memorialises the human casualties of targeted violent crime in the region. Commemorating the legacy of Homero Gómez González, the environmental activist and custodian of the UNESCO-listed Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, whose death in 2020 was thought to have been tied to his work protecting the habitat from illegal logging, Laposse uses the physical gesture associated with the furniture typology, which invites us to lay down to rest, to realise his deeply allegorical intention for the piece.
Working in dialogue with the tapestry and day bed, Branch joinery system, 2023, is a modular furniture system fusing traditional knowledge and new modes of production that capture the history of the materials employed: timbers from the Michoacán monarch butterfly sanctuary and the skin of discarded avocados. Composed of a system of short timber sections connected with wooden screws hewn from local woods, the scale of the joinery reflects the characteristics of its source – branch material and shorter sections of trunk pruned from trees that form the habitat for migrating monarch butterflies. For Avocado leather cabinet, 2023, Laposse has developed a new technique for drying, stretching and flattening avocado skins into a tough, finished marquetry. Continuing the logic of the timber sections, the scale of the marquetry pattern has a direct relationship to the properties of the material it is made from. Rather than decoupling materials from their origin, Laposse is deliberate in making sources legible.
Animating the events depicted in the tapestry and alluded to in the design of the furniture, Laposse has produced The avocado legacy, 2023, a documentary film that provides firsthand accounts of the impact avocado farming has had in Michoacán. A compilation of interviews with women from Cherán, rangers from the monarch butterfly sanctuary, biologists and human rights activists, the documentary foregrounds the voices of those who are directly affected by the avocado trade and who are actively resisting the damage being inflicted on the culture and environment in Mexico. Tracing the supply chain from farming, harvesting and export to consumption, the film confronts viewers with their own position as the consumers who drive demand for avocados, highlighting that the injustices that result from the avocado trade are a global phenomenon and not isolated to Mexico.
Conflict Avocados uncovers the ethical implications of avocado farming, inviting conversations about sustainability, transparency and responsible trade in the global economy through design. Each of the four elements that comprise the work – Resting place, Branch joinery system, Avocado leather cabinet and The avocado legacy. Deforestation, revolution, a new beginning – expand contemporary material culture, representing the potential for design to address not only aesthetics, but also ethics, while forming a record of current cultural and economic conditions. Revealing the dynamics embedded in materials, Conflict Avocados provides a lucid account of the social, economic and environmental ramifications of global consumption.
The NGV warmly thanks The Andrew and Geraldine Buxton Foundation for their support.
This artist has been supported by the Elizabeth Summons Grant in Memory of Nicholas Draffin.
Proudly supported by Principal Partner Mercedes-Benz.
GEMMA SAVIO is a Curator, Contemporary Design and Architecture, National Gallery of Victoria.