ARTIST |
Claudia Claremi |
TITLE |
La memoria de las frutas (Puerto Rico) |
YEAR |
2015-2016 |
ARTIST’S COUNTRY OF ORIGEN |
España-Cuba |
DIMENSIONS |
Variable |
MEDIUM |
Reversible, hand developed, 16mm black-and-white film, 35mm black-and-white photographs, text on acetates, projectors, publication |
Credits: Resisting the Trouble – Moving Images in Times of Crisis. Manifattura Tabacchi. Florence, Italy. Photo: Federica Di Giovanni.
La memoria de las frutas. Beta Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy of the artist.
La memoria de las frutas, by Cuban-Spanish artist Claudia Claremi, warns of the impact of single crop farming in Puerto Rico, particularly on banana farms.1 Claremi uses testimony given by residents of San Juan to recollect the island’s native fruits, which are no longer grown in order to make way for the varieties sought by the international market (such as bananas). In La memoria de las frutas the memories of the interviewees are brought to life using old projectors and black and white 16mm film. The film shows the interviewees’ hands cradling the void left by the disappearance of the fruits, which can now only be recalled through collective memory. This unorthodox artwork, which depicts Puerto Rico’s “forgotten” fruits, enables Claremi to draw attention to contemporary instances of economic, geographical and cultural colonialism, restoring a part of the Puerto Rican people’s cultural identity in the process.
1 I The most widely grown fruits in Puerto Rico are bananas, mangos and pineapples. “Agriculture”, Welcome to Puerto Rico, consulted on 18th June 2021, https://welcome.topuertorico.org/reference/agri.shtml