Fernando Laposse with his work Conflict Avocados presented as part of NGV Triennial, on display from 3 December 2023 to 7 April 2024 at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Amelia Dowd
The National Gallery of Victoria's 2023 NGV Triennial exhibition, of which Mercedes-Benz is proud to be the Principal Partner, represents the forefront of global contemporary practice. Bringing together 100 extraordinary projects from artists, designers and collectives from around the globe, the exhibition holds up a mirror to the world we live in and challenges us to examine the beliefs and practices that govern our way of life.
The exhibition is anchored in three themes. ‘Magic’ explores the belief systems that have influenced our thinking; ‘Matter’ highlights the importance of materials in human culture; and ‘Memory’ examines the various histories that have shaped the contemporary world.
Mexican designer Fernando Laposse is one of 120 creatives represented in NGV Triennial 2023. His project, entitled Conflict Avocados, shines a light on the global commodification of the humble avocado, and the devastating consequences it’s had on Mexican communities.
Avocados have become a staple of our diets and a must-have for any good breakfast or brunch. For years, eye-catching images of the popular superfood smashed on toast, sliced in a salad, or blended into a smoothie have saturated our social media feeds. But tracing the journey from farm to plate reveals a far less glamorous reality.
Exploring the theme of ‘Matter’, Fernando uses avocados as both material and muse, stitching together the complex story of Michoacán – Mexico’s epicentre of avocado production – with a documentary film, 40-metre tapestry and several pieces of handmade furniture. The installation tells a harrowing tale of deforestation, violence and overconsumption, and yet it is infused with courage and hope as well.
The avocado phenomenon
Fernando has always been guided by his strong social conscience, and his work often explores the cultural and environmental implications of a single material. For a previous project, he developed Totomoxtle – a veneer made from upcycled corn husks – to celebrate the rainbow of heirloom varieties native to Mexico and question the monoculture of yellow corn that dominates supermarkets.
“This project was all about helping a community of Indigenous farmers,” Fernando says. “It’s looking at ways of creating a new material that will help them return to traditional ways of farming, reintroducing practices with corn that have been lost.”
With Conflict Avocados – a work commissioned by the NGV for the 2023 Triennial exhibition – he examines the impact of another crop.
Avocados are native to Mexico, and the region has a rich history of cultivating them. Over the years, the state of Michoacán has become a major hub for avocado production, producing around 5.5 billion pounds of the fruit each year.
“Michoacán exports 80 per cent of the avocados in the US and about 50 per cent of all the avocados in the world,” says Fernando.
Despite there being many varieties of avocado, the Hass avocado is the most popular. This was partly the result of an effective Super Bowl campaign in the US in the 90s; it’s estimated that around 105 million pounds of guacamole are consumed by Americans on Super Bowl Sunday.
The popularity of Hass avocados has reshaped Mexico’s top growing region. “The Hass has become the avocado of choice because it travels the best, it’s been designed to be exported,” says Fernando.
“For me, materials are a way of embodying information – embodying problems, but also resolutions,” says Fernando.
The impact of avocado farming
The insatiable global demand for avocados has had devastating environmental consequences. A 2016 report estimated that 20,000 acres of forest in Michoacán are razed annually to meet our growing appetite for the fruit.
As forests are illegally logged to make room for avocado farms, the region’s biodiversity is being degraded, too. Monarch butterflies are particularly affected; their migration paths send them to Michoacán every year, but mass deforestation in the area is threatening the North American pollinators’ habitats.
“They always arrive on the first of November, which is also when The Day of the Dead is celebrated, so many people believe the butterflies represent the souls of their loved ones,” Fernando says.
“Now they’re endangered, which is a total tragedy. That’s something I really wanted to show, how trade and global demand can really have an impact on the environment.”
A symbol of hope
Though the profit-chasing avocado frenzy has seen the industry linked to cartels, violence and corruption, Fernando finds hope in Michoacán’s town of Cherán.
In 2011, the women of Cherán rallied together and organised a revolt, fighting back against the illegal loggers to protect their forests from further destruction.
“After this fight, Cherán managed to become self-governing,” Fernando explains. “They’ve started a huge reforestation project… and there’s a total ban on avocados.”
The artist was particularly inspired by the townspeople’s courage and selflessness. “They have all managed to agree on creating a new world where they are refusing money, refusing the temptation and the greed of being part of this trade, and seeing a future where it’s more important to have a forest,” he says.
The story of Cherán creates a vital note of optimism in Conflict Avocados. The tapestry depicts the town’s revolt, while the documentary film – entitled The avocado legacy – includes a compilation of interviews with the women, as well as rangers from the El Rosario monarch butterfly sanctuary, biologists and human rights activists.
Finding meaning in material
Avocados were incorporated in many culturally significant ways throughout the project.
“For me, materials are a way of embodying information – embodying problems, but also resolutions,” Fernando says.
He used the pits of avocados, which are rich in tannins, to dye the fabrics an array of colours. “What surprised everyone was how many colours you can get out of the avocado… you get everything from pale pinks to much more reddish tones, to browns and greys,” he says.
“Every avocado will give you a different colour, and no matter how much of a ‘recipe’ you want to follow, you have to adapt to what you are given.”
“Using the produce itself, which is the object of discussion here, was really important,” says Fernando.
Colour was especially meaningful in the Resting place component: a patchwork tribute to environmental campaigner and activist, Homero Gómez González, who sought to protect the monarch butterflies’ habitat before his death in 2020. Inspired by the Japanese boro tradition of mending tattered fabrics, Resting place hints “at the possible repair of a broken system”. It features a combination of pink avocado-dyed fabrics and yellow fabrics that were dyed using marigolds. As marigolds are the Day of the Dead flowers in Mexico, they are closely tied to the concept of the monarch butterflies.
Incredibly, Fernando also used discarded skins from a local guacamole vendor near his studio in Mexico City to bring this project to life. He stretched and flattened the skins until they formed a tough, leather-like marquetry, and used this to clad Avocado leather cabinet. The whole process took about eight months.
Despite the painstaking approach, “using the produce itself, which is the object of discussion here, was really important”.
Thinking beyond the Hass avocado
While Conflict Avocados tells a complex story about the crop’s troubling production, Fernando hopes it will inspire deeper thought and reflection about the foods we choose to consume.
“Certainly I don’t want to guilt trip anyone into anything,” he says. “If you like avocados, by all means, keep on eating them… it’s just thinking more locally, growing your own food, being more curious about how your food was made and how it arrives to you.”
Though most of the avocados sold in Australia are homegrown or imported from New Zealand, Fernando encourages us to look beyond what’s offered by supermarkets.
“You might be thinking ‘wow, this is an oasis of food and diversity’, but… it’s actually a very small selection of the options you have, and you can have way more things available locally,” he says.
Think of how one avocado – the Hass – has oversaturated our shelves. “You’re dealing with one variety of a vegetable, when there are hundreds, usually,” he says.
“That would be what I’d encourage people to think about.”
Mercedes-Benz Australia is proud to be the Principal Partner of the 2023 NGV Triennial exhibition, which is currently showing in Melbourne until April 7, 2024. Learn more about the NGV Triennial exhibition here.