Sam Myers BS Digital Media Design
¡Bananas!
digital images (photographs of 42 painted plastic bananas), 2020
As designers and artists, we must realize that doing “commercial” or “corporate” work may mean compromising our own morals and ethics. This is difficult, and it can be necessary to make ends meet, but we must do the best we can with what we have available. We were born into a system where production is inherently exploitative, but we all need to create ethical and moral boundaries, in who we design and what we consume.
Ethically, I cannot buy Chiquita Bananas. The Chiquita Banana Company, formally known as the United Fruit Company; with help from the CIA, instilled a dictatorship in Guatemala in 1954. This lead to 42 years of civil war and the genocide of indigenous peoples in Guatemala. All of this was done in the name of money. This capitalist idea of doing anything to make money is something we as designers inherently contribute to. We create pretty packaging and advertisements for tainted products. While designing we must be more conscious of who we are designing for.
