P.O.V.: You are a banana

An inflatable installation reimagines the relationship between plastic waste and handcrafted production, offering a fresh, visually striking exploration across diverse design scales.

POV: You Are a Banana is a critical design iteration that creates objects and knowledge, forging connections within a community navigating the fractured landscape of agriculture and consumerism.

Excerpt from the text “Banana blue” by Alejandro Camara:

…”Encountering a material can often, ironically, be a metaphysical experience. We've heard about the fine marble that one must "discover" the sculpture already "contained" within it. Something similar happens with wood carving. We accept a will of the material. What about plastic? As Norberto rightly points out, our relationship with plastic has been primarily one of consumption and disposal, mediated by engineering, design, and finally the market. Few truly worthy or lasting uses can be thought of for this material. Initially, plastic was manufactured to replace other natural materials like ivory. Now, there seems to be an insurmountable gap between the natural world and PET containers, for example. However, Norberto introduces the idea of ancestral plastic. Because for minds unfamiliar with chemical knowledge and educated with monographic sheets of stationery shop, what is plastic if not a derivative of petroleum? And what is petroleum if not the fossil remains that over millions of years have turned into that black and viscous liquid with which, ultimately, plastic dinosaurs are produced?

To simplify things, we'll say that it all started a few years ago in Cihuatlán, Jalisco. Specifically, at Rancho La Vena, a significant source of the local banana production. Before that, Norberto had experimented with inflatables as ephemeral architectures capable of itinerating cultural contents. To find an alternative to the PVC plastic tarp used in inflatable architecture, Norberto thought that going to a tourist beach in search of discarded inflatables would be a good idea. What he found was a response like, 'Uh, no, güero, there's hardly any of that here.' Back at the banana grove of Ashida Agro, the answer seemed obvious. The blue polypropylene plastic bags used to cover bananas so they don't get 'freckles' and can be sold in the local and international market constituted a constant and stable source of waste that could be used to carry out the upycling operation that Norberto had in mind and that would ultimately become Bolsas Bolsón.

Just the name alone already contains. POV: you're a banana in a blue placenta. Of that artificial blue, but reminiscent of an idea of sky or sea. Kneading the blue mass could turn it into almost anything thanks to the application of hot air and manual rollers, ending with a lamination process. Urban waste drops and veins can be added to this material made from agricultural waste: more bags from disappeared supermarkets, from pharmacies in Guadalajara, or from the black garbage bag. A docile material, capable of becoming objects of art, design, or architecture depending on how you look at them. And a color that we've wanted to name: Banana Blue.

Few techniques, like this one, encapsulate an equally powerful ethics in their aesthetics. Its logic of circularity stands out at first glance. 'An idea born in the heart of the Jalisco banana grove, cultivated in the independent cultural ecosystem of Guadalajara, which adds to the alternatives to relieve the world of artificial congestion,' is one of its descriptions. Because the future, if there is any, is not to come, but will be built with what already exists. The future of Bolsas Bolsón is, for now, outside the city, at the Cultural Center Costalegre in Cihuatlán, Jalisco, where the old dehydrator plant has been designated for cultural content for a community linked to the banana grove for several decades. The opportunity to make this material and this upcycling technique available to people is encouraging. The banana blue will continue to grow, in the form of clothing, sculpture, bubble, bag, or shelf. It remains to imagine its potential uses, for example, in urban furniture or as a construction material. There is also the question of whether the same material can be both a work hanging on a wall, a piece of clothing, or an object to sit on, why keep insisting on calling only that which is unusable as art. I believe that the different actions that Norberto has undertaken to change the perception of the useful life of plastic and its functionality have also led him to discover a hidden virtue of this material, an internal will that is malleable, receptive and kind to manual labor. Also, with high anthropological value, as it is built from human consumption and waste and concludes in its subsequent repair and reuse. It is clear that the future, if it exists, will have to pass through our hands.”

Garment by Khris Cravioto

Vestimenta × Cravioto @kcravioto

Texto de exposición de @camarafrias

Esta exposición es posible gracias a @independenciacentro @paubarrragan

@bolsasbolson @cccostalegre Ashida

Agro @moneyash @sof.cm