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It’s a running joke in Melbourne that smashed avo on toast is stopping Millennials from buying their own homes. In some parts of the world, however, the issues surrounding avocados are a lot darker and a lot farther reaching – from organised crime to serious environmental effects.
Mexican artist Fernando Laposse documents the rise and rise of the fruit – and the devastating effects of the massive demand for it – in Conflict Avocados, a new project commissioned for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial, which opens next week.
Mexican artist Fernando Laposse’s work examines the dark side of the avocado.Credit: Simon Schluter
All of Mexico’s avocados are grown in just one state, Michoacan, which is also the main habitat for monarch butterflies. Each year, the orange butterflies – the key pollinators of North America – migrate to a forest area known as El Rosario. As demand for avocados has increased in the United States, more land is cleared. Laposse points to a corresponding decline in the butterflies’ population, to the point where they are now endangered.
Initially, his work was focused on the loss of that location, so crucial for biodiversity, and how demand for agricultural land contributed.
“This is why it’s so important to preserve that place – no one knows why [the butterflies] go to that particular forest, why have they been doing it for time immemorial, how do they know to do it,” he says. “It’s one of these amazing wonders of nature.”
Resting Place 2023 (detail) by Fernando Laposse, from the Conflict Avocados project 2023, presented in the NGV Triennial 2023. Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria.Credit: Fernando Laposse
The 35-year-old designer’s focus changed when Homero Gómez González, an activist working for the protection of the monarch’s habitat, was found tortured and murdered: Laposse felt compelled to tell his story.
Triennial 2023 puts 100 projects by more than 120 artists, designers and collectives from about 30 countries and regions on display at the gallery’s St Kilda Road site.
It is designed as a celebration of creative practice across art, design and architecture, says lead curator Ewan Mceoin. Highlights include works by Yoko Ono, David Shrigley, Tracey Emin and Maurizio Cattelan.
“Fernando’s project is a perfect example, a beautiful project but extremely political in terms of what it’s addressing; the back story is brutal,” says Mceoin. “We’re quite comfortable working with artists who are challenging what’s going on in the world.”
Laposse says that in America, heavy demand for avocados can be traced back to ads placed during the Super Bowl in the 1990s by a syndicate of Mexican avocado growers to encourage viewers to eat guacamole.
“It was genius on their part, but I think that opened the floodgates.”
Avocado leather cabinet 2023 by Fernando Laposse (detail).Credit: Fernando Laposse
In a 40-metre tapestry commissioned for the Triennial, he references the way the fruit is depicted on social media, complete with avocado marriage proposals through to “all of these pseudo-remedies, health benefits that are often uninformed and sort of just invented”.
“[The tapestry] is a way of visually explaining how our demand for it is an engineered demand,” he says.
In it, Laposse documents the fight for the precious forest, including one community’s extraordinary resistance against illegal loggers and its subsequent victory.
“The main material used in the tapestry is cotton dyed with avocado pips, while the yellows and greens are created using marigolds, the Day of the Dead flowers,” he says. “We needed an extra colour but it became quite symbolic as it relates to Homero [the murdered activist].”
In Mexican culture, monarch butterflies are considered to embody the souls of the recently departed; their annual return to Mexico coincides with Day of the Dead on November 1.
Laposse has also created Resting Place (2023), a day bed that looks a bit like a sarcophagus, upholstered in a patchwork inspired by the Japanese tradition of boro stitching – “a piece that would hint at the repairing of damage”, he says.
There is also a beautiful cabinet made from the skins of avocados to illustrate what can be done with materials otherwise regarded as waste.
Detail from Laposse’s Resting Place 2023.Credit: Fernando Laposse
In the adjoining room, a documentary by Laposse featuring interviews with the villagers of Cheran telling their story of resistance – “a story of hope”, he says – will be screened.
“I’m always really obsessed with how global commodities can have an impact on local communities. Sometimes we can be desensitised to big numbers, so it’s about presenting stories about Homero and the villagers, to bring things back to a human level.”
There is a disconnect in Western countries, says the Mexico City-based artist. “In Latin America and Mexico, it’s almost irrelevant to talk about whether your bottle is disposable or not when people are being murdered.
“If we don’t begin to solve this problem of poverty and inequality, we’re not going to begin to solve the environmental crisis.”
Triennial opens at NGV International on December 3 and runs until April 7, 2024.
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