Diego Morales Portillo

In Monroe, Diego Morales Portillo “draws” the surface of the map of the American continent using bananas. Each of these bananas is marked with a decal following the model of those used by Chiquita Brands to identify the bananas imported by the company and trace the place of origin of the fruit. But instead of featuring “Miss Chiquita”—the iconic mascot of the fruit company—, Morales Portillo replaces this figure with that of James Monroe, the former US president best remembered for the infamous “Monroe Doctrine”: initially a policy against European expansion in the Americas that ended up becoming a plan to expand US territorial dominance. In Morales Portillo’s installation, those attending the exhibition are invited to take the bananas with them, thus gradually erasing the map and alluding to the strong impact of the banana plantations and their excessive trade.