Gifts Up the Chain
In 2021, I established a relationship with a local flower shop after learning they had excess flowers (“dump” flowers) that would go to compost on a weekly basis. I began to use them as materials in my natural dyeing practice in my studio.
At the time, I was reflecting on how systems set in motion by colonization (both economic and social) benefit the global north to this day. I became interested in globalized distribution chains that transport raw goods from the global south and the concept of extractive capitalism. This term referst to the removal of large quantities of raw or natural materials, particularly for export with minimal processing. The concept emerged in the late 1900s (as extractivismo) to describe resource appropriation for export in Latin America, and it refers to “a particular way of thinking and the properties and practices organized towards the goal of maximizing benefit through extraction, which brings in its wake violence and destruction" (1).
The flowers I collected weekly consisted mostly of roses grown in industrial farms in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. They travel to Canada, where I reside, through Miami to Winnipeg, a trip taken in refrigerated planes and trucks. The distribution chain is designed to keep cut flowers fresh from the farm to the hands of the consumer in less than a week. The trips the fresh flowers take are propelled by fossil fuels and sustained by intricate logistics choreographed by distributors and performed by workers in farms and warehouses.
Some facts about the cut flower industry: (2)
-About 70% of the cut flowers presently sold in the USA and Canada are imported. Over 90% comes from Colombia, Ecuador and the Netherlands.
-Roses are the main imported flower with 41% of the share.
-About 90% of the flower volume imported each year into the U.S. enters via Miami. 5% enters via Los Angeles and 3% via New York.
In the book Plants Have so Much to Give us, All we Have to do is Ask by Mary Siisip Geniusz, an Anishinaabe writer, there is a story about roses that resonated with this project. The tile is “The Year the Roses died” (3). The story serves as a cautionary tell against greed; it is said that the roses were given thorns to stop the animals and people from taking everything the plant gives at once and disrupting harmony. The thorns serve as a reminder that we should take only what we need. The Rose stands as a symbol of sustainability in this project.
My personal entry point comes from the connection I feel with the roses’ migration (extraction) from South America with my own as first generation immigrant. To locate myself in treaty 1 territory, I turn to local Indigenous teachings about plants in an effort to decolonize my thinking about interspecies relations.
Gifts Up the chain explores ideas of sustainability, radical relationality and personal agency. As an artist I am interested in making work that remediates, or recuperates these "dump" roses. This project is a gesture that disrupts the international supply distribution chain, seeks to extend the roses’ life a bit longer while honouring their spirit. And lastly, it aims to fulfill the cut flower’s most likely original purpose; to be given as gifts. This action, in turn, is intended to honour the workers of the cut-flower industry, whose labour is made invisible to consumers.
Sources
(1) Durante, Francesco; Kröger, Markus; LaFleur, William (2021-05-19), Shapiro, Judith; McNeish, John-Andrew (eds.), "Extraction and Extractivisms", Our Extractive Age (1 ed.), Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 17–30.
Acosta, Alberto. “Extractivism and neo-extractivism: two sides of the same curse.” Beyond Development: Alternative Visions from Latin America, (2013): 61-87.
(2) AAFC (2022, December 20). “Statistical Overview Canadian Ornamental Industry” https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/sector/horticulture/reports/statistical-overview-canadian-ornamental-industry-2021#s3.3
(3) Geniusz, Mary Siisip, Geniusz, Wendy Makoons (Eds.). (2015) Plants have so much to give us all we have to do is ask. _press
Response from gift receivers
Stay tuned! Packages were sent in early June 2023