Lotta Esko & Naya Magaliou: Fruits, Unite!
14.-25.2.2024
Opening 14.2. at 18, welcome!
Fruits, Unite! is a mixed media art exhibition showcasing the work of Helsinki based visual artist Lotta Esko and Athens based visual artist Naya Magaliou. Whilst analyzing the visual symbol of the banana, Fruits, Unite! repeats various iterations of the fruit in painting, sculptural, textual and research-based mediums.
The artworks are an investigation into colonial history, European food culture and sexual/gender/cultural identities.The banana is used as a pretext to engage with the many ideas relating to the long history of using tropical fruits as symbols in European visual culture. Magaliou, shows large scale acrylic paintings on found materials and Esko shows sculptural pieces again, made with found materials.
Writer and academic Raita Merivirta, contributes with her text The Story of the Most Popular Fruit in the World: Banana, where she discusses the process of the banana's domestication and how it came to be an international commodity.