Vibeke Mascini

In Instar (3.9 kWh) (2023), Vibeke Mascini transforms the residue of a global illicit trade into a tangible circuit of light. The work materializes electricity produced from the incineration of confiscated cocaine—found hidden in a banana shipment from Ecuador—and stores it in a custom-built battery system. During Liste Art Fair Basel 2023, Proyectos Ultravioleta’s booth was fully disconnected from the main grid, powered instead by this “cocaine battery.” What appears as an industrial still life—a pallet jack, stacked batteries, and cables—quietly glows, making visible the latent energy that persists after destruction.
Mascini’s practice often probes the moral and material paradoxes of energy cycles: what is considered waste or contraband on one shore re-enters circulation as power on another. Here, collaboration with scientists, engineers, and customs officials turns an act of erasure into a network of interdependence. The installation exposes how systems of legality, logistics, and technology intertwine, reminding us that disappearance in a global economy is rarely absolute—it merely changes form.

The connection between bananas, cocaine, and electricity, while improbable, reflects long-standing trade entanglements in the Americas. Cocaine often travels concealed within banana shipments—products of the same maritime routes, refrigerated containers, and accelerated port economies. By converting the ashes of confiscated cocaine (hidden among bananas) into light, Instar (3.9 kWh) illuminates how extractive and narcotic economies share infrastructures, revealing the absurd continuity between consumption, prohibition, and the energy that fuels both.