Pa’ estar guindando, mejor caer.

This project was made for “In Between” event for the V&A East, but originally my degree show at the Slade that did not happen because it was 2020. It is an installation that consists on a tent with 500 hanging papier-mâché mangoes and an ongoing activity for visitors to paint their own mango.

Mangoes tell of my memories growing up and seeing and feeling an excess of the fruit in the streets when in season. A surplus of chutney, various desserts, juices and eventually rotting mangoes in the streets. In Caracas you have a tree in every other square. The trees might even surpass the amount of pubs in London, having mango season become a slightly sticky and sweet time. The feeling of excess juicy fruit came to a halt when in 2017 the economic crisis hit an all time low and you’d no longer see mangoes rotting in the streets. Mangoes became the food for those who could not go to the supermarkets. For me, they are a symbol of why people have left just as much as a symbol for our fertile land. It may be both: sweet and sour.