Paradoxes of Plenty #18

The series of works on paper entitled Paradossi dell’Abbondanza (Paradoxes of Plenty), begun by Marzia Migliora in 2017 – is still ongoing, explores the imagery that developed in the 20th century around the industrialisation of agriculture and livestock farming on a global scale, starting from the relationship between humans and the earth, which has always been based on food production thanks to the work of farmers, and aims to highlight the interdependence of the increasingly precarious balance between humankind, the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. Paradoxes of Plenty #18 tackles the “war” against weeds and all agents that threaten intensive agricultural production. The background of the work depicts giant vegetable and fruit plants attacked by pests, birds, mould, and snails, flanked by bins of chemicals and mole repellents, evoking a veritable agricultural battlefield. This imagery has its roots in the post-war period, when many war factories were converted to the production of agrochemicals for herbicides and pesticides. Industrial continuity was accompanied by persistent war rhetoric, evident in the commercial names of products such as Rat and Mouse Killer, AndALL Insect Killer, Fungus Fighter, and Spark Gold.
In dialogue with this logic of control and aggression, several tall-tale postcards, popular in the United States since the 1950s, appear at the centre of the work. Through photomontages that magnify fruit, vegetables, and animals, these images celebrate the American myth of agricultural abundance.