Maria Thereza Alves

 
Land
Recipes for Survival
Communal
Destabilizers
Birds
Seeing you
Water
Utopia
We
Borders
Plants
X

"When they come, flee“, said my Grandmother to my Mother. "When they come, flee“, said Mother to Me.

X

"When they come, flee“, said my Grandmother to my Mother. "When they come, flee“, said Mother to Me., 2014

2 Bronze sculptures
40x24x24 cm and 40x19x17 cm

Artocarpus heterophyllus
Jackfruit was brought to Brazil by the Portuguese colonizers as an economical way to feed the native people and Africans who they had made into slaves. Today, the tree is displacing native flora in some forests of Brazil.

“When they come, flee.”, said my grandmother to my mother.
“When they come, flee.”, said my mother to Me.
That warning was an attempt to pass on survival skills in order to survive the invasion which resulted in theft of land, slavery based on race, genocide, massive introduction of non-indigenous flora for cash crop plantations, introduction of European farm animals and consequent devasting ecological effects of destruction of native forests to convert into pasture lands and much disease.

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