Jessica L. Bell

In Porch Monkeys (2018-2020) (2018–2020), Jessica Bell turns the banana—a fruit historically entangled with colonial trade and racialized imagery—into a sculptural register of contemporary hate. Each hand-crafted, life-size banana commemorates a real incident in which bananas were hurled or monkey chants were directed at Black athletes during professional soccer games across Europe. The work’s bright yellows and glossy Chiquita-style stickers mask a history of humiliation, transforming the gallery floor into a field of evidence. Through replication and accumulation, Bell exposes how acts dismissed as “banter” or “tradition” perpetuate the legacies of racial violence embedded in both sport and everyday culture.

The title itself reclaims a slur—“porch monkey,” a racist term weaponized against Black communities in the United States—revealing the transatlantic circulation of colonial stereotypes. By rendering each banana unique and naming the targeted athlete on its label, Bell restores individuality and dignity to those dehumanized in the stadium. The work’s material humor—a cluster of inanimate, brightly painted fruits—sharpens its critique, forcing viewers to confront the normalization of racist gestures within spaces celebrated for global unity and fair play.

At once absurd and devastating, Porch Monkeys stages a confrontation between spectacle and silence. It bridges the colonial gaze that once exoticized the banana with its persistence as a tool of racial mockery in modern sport. Bell’s intervention reclaims the object’s symbolic charge, transforming it into an indictment of complicity and amnesia. By archiving these incidents in sculptural form, she ensures that the violence of ridicule—like the bruises beneath a banana’s skin—remains visible long after the laughter fades.