Suffice Shaman Sree

This piece was initially very focused in the concept in the idea of the entire tree being usable, from its stems to the fruit, as well as the flowers and leaves, is capable of being an entirely usable no waste crop, providing food that can be prepared in a multitude of ways and provide a wide array of tastes, all of it being rich in various elements that help the body in different ways. I wanted the collage to an homage to this idea that the entire plant is usable and should be included and put to use as there’s an ample amount of waste in the modern banana production process, which was also my inspiration to do the overlays of banana stem cores over the piece. The element of this collage that has the shrink wrapped individually wrapped and then packaged bananas in a shoebox with narcotics as well as the inclusion of the octopi handing things off to one another, as well as the banana sticker magazine are all references to the banana trade that was established in honduras and the surrounding countries by a man known as ‘the octopus’ for his long reach and influence in the central to southern american areas. The conflict and focus on exports that surrounded these trades also ended up getting lumped in with a lot of illicit trading. The last element of the piece is really the Indian prescription for kidney medication, the x rays of people’s kidneys in states of disarray, as well as the graph utilized above that was used and altered to be blank but is actually a graph about kidney health and urinary issues, something the flowers of the banana trees have been used for thousands of years to remedy.