Preview
Creation Date
2025
Dimensions
47 x 40 x 7 Inches
Materials
Mixed Media
Medium
Installation
Project Advisor
Benjamin D. Rinehart and John Shimon
Year of Graduation
2025
Rights
Copyright for this work is held by the artist.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
COinS
Artist Statement
In 1899 the United Fruit Company (UFC) was born from a merger of the Boston Fruit Company and fruit companies owned by Minor C. Keith, an American businessman. This fruit company, along with corrupt politicians and dictators, would go on to deceive Central American countries with promises of infrastructure in exchange for tax exemptions and land concessions. The railroads they built were nothing more than a direct line from the banana plantations to the ports where everything would be taken to New Orleans and then fed to the unknowing American public. Meanwhile in Honduras our people bled blue as they built the very tracks that took from them their dignity, sovereignty, and most of all their lives. The doors we opened were forsaken and our blood stained the wooden shipping pallets, the banana leaves, and the cardboard boxes that held these false banana shaped promises.
My grandfather worked on these plantations for much of his life. These pieces serve as memorials to him and those who fought against the governments and companies that sold us and our land. They also show those who orchestrated some of the worst atrocities our people have known since the Spanish Invasion.