‘Fruit Belt’, closes the ‘One Foot Out’ programme at Espai 13, Joan Miró Foundation

Fundación Joan Miró is hosting a new programme of exhibitions ‘One Foot Out. Expeditions and Diasporas’ at Espai 13 until September 2017, in collaboration with Banco Sabadell Foundation. The programme aims to reflect on ideas of belonging, continuity and breaking through pre-set models in the artistic scene in Barcelona.

Through ‘Fruit Belt’ the artist Martin Llavaneras aims to create an incursion into the divisory margins between the human species and our environment. The name of this exhibition is a reference to the English expression. A fruit belt is an area in which the microclimate creates excellent conditions for fruit growing, as well as agricultural parcels which are characterised by an abundance of industrial warehouses.

Foto: Pere Pratdesaba.

The exhibition is comprised of two pieces which are connected together. The first piece is a construction which has been transversally positioned in the exhibition space, in which the atmospheric conditions are different to the rest of the space. And the second piece is positioned in the corridor of the exhibition space, and it is comprised of a group of containers full of different liquids. Through a circuit of hosepipes, pumps and timers these containers distribute some of the synthetic additives which are added to fruit skins as a protective barrier to increase their shelf life.

Apart from the techniques designed to control the ripening of the fruit, the artist shows a conceptual and sculptural view of the vital cycles of commodities and the relationships we have with them.