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Cercle D Art Des Travailleurs De Plantation Congolaise

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CATPC the artists from the plantation is a contemporary artwork located at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) by Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), Baloji and Renzo Martens. It is a social comment on how today’s art world deals with economic inequality by films, drawings or projects, which temporarily eliminate that inequality and than shows it off in fancy art galleries. The location of the film is Leverville in the Congo, which is a former Unilever plantation their first one. Established in 1911 Unilever they confiscated the whole area, where many natural palm trees grew, for decades palm oil faming has been violently imposed in the plantation zones by distant shareholders, the plantation workers earn some money but …show more content…

The film than transitions to a bright fire orange background covered in the centre by a hut created out of dead leaves on the top of the hut there is a large round tangerine coloured traditional mask which is traditionally used to ensure a good crop harvest, deep green leaves surround the hut divided in the middle by a dirt path. A young girl stands on the path wearing a grass skirt while holding a machete with purple mist taking over the screen. Than the scene dramatically zooms in on a chocolate sculpture of a head, which is than slashed at by the machete until it crumbles into pieces, the girl than eats the chocolate and the scene than zooms in on the girl smiling. This is meant to show the transitions of the plantation from a place where people lived in slums, crumbling houses and died for a meagre $20 a month pay check to a place where those same plantation workers create clay sculptures which are reproduced in cocoa than sold to help this community and others like …show more content…

It than suddenly cuts to the lower half of a woman in a blood red one piece outfit with her arms by her side in one hand she is holding a rustic white statue of half a man on a mantle, which than shifts to the woman’s face which than quickly zooms out to present her in the centre of the scene standing in front of leave covered wall with a heart shaped symbol in the middle which is meant to represent a bunch of cocoa, with orange smoke blowing out from behind the woman. The scene quickly changes to show a woman in a white crop top and skirt with a futuristic head set on, the white clothes represent spirituality and serenity which is juxtaposed with the concept of the futuristic head set which symbolises the ore coltan which is used in phones, computers, camera’s and plasma TV’s, coltan also leads to brutal wars in Africa. The scene quickly shifts to the woman in the blood red one piece licking the back of the chocolate statue, which than switches back to the woman in the white clothes sitting on a bright orange mat surrounded by cocoa nuts with light purple smoke emerging from the

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