Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw
Bananas on sale! (Banana Massacre)
2018
mixed media
17 x 16 x 14 inches (43 x 40.5 x 35.5 cm)

This miniature piece alludes to both a charming banana stand found on the side of the road as well as a grocery store display that could be found in Target, promoting the exceptionally cheap and popular fruit in the United States. The bananas, branded as Chiquita, which originated from the company United Fruit, represent a long and violent past of the company's practices including ousting democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán of Guatemala, creating banana republics, using environmentally degrading practices, and the killing of thousands of striking laborers protesting unfair working environments in the Banana Massacre. The piece contains 347 bananas, each representing a family who recently sued Chiquita in 2007 for funding a terrorist organization that killed their family members, to which Chiquita pled guilty. The piece, tropical and inviting, alludes to the darker history of how we are so easily able to buy this fruit.