Mathieu Asselin France, b. 1973
Monsanto: a photographic investigation, 2021
Mixed media: the box contains the entire exhibition as shown around the world.
After years of intimate proximity to the horrors of Monsanto®, Asselin’s primary intention for the work remains the public dissemination of knowledge about this important subject. Achieving this aim, however, requires the work to be acquired, held and exhibited in its entirety, always.
Allowing the sale of individual pieces would fragment and diminish the integrity of the message, instead lending itself to private and largely unseen hands. This critical condition to the work became the foundation of this newly conceived wooden crate.
After years of intimate proximity to the horrors of Monsanto®, Asselin’s primary intention for the work remains the public dissemination of knowledge about this important subject. Achieving this aim, however, requires the work to be acquired, held and exhibited in its entirety, always.
Allowing the sale of individual pieces would fragment and diminish the integrity of the message, instead lending itself to private and largely unseen hands. This critical condition to the work became the foundation of this newly conceived wooden crate.
Approximately 100 x 130 x 60 cm
Edition of 3
Series: Monsanto: a photographic investigation
MA 169
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On June 7, 2018, Bayer bought the agrochemical giant Monsanto® for $63 billion. Despite the name being swiftly brushed aside in an attempt to alleviate a reputation synonymous with corporate...
On June 7, 2018, Bayer bought the agrochemical giant Monsanto® for $63 billion. Despite the name being swiftly brushed aside in an attempt to alleviate a reputation synonymous with corporate greed, environmental destruction and the exploitation of ordinary people, the sale marked yet another step in the company’s ever tightening grip on global agriculture. Since being founded in 1901, Monsanto® has been at the forefront of fusing of nature and the capabilities of man, first introducing genes into plants in 1983 and trialling the first genetically modified seeds in 1987. Today, for the first time in human life, they hold thousands of patents on seeds and plants, claiming legal ownership to the food that is fundamental to our lives.
Their ruthless dedication to innovation and profit has, however, been littered with deadly consequences, perhaps most horrifically evident in Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a weaponised herbicide manufactured by Monsanto® and used on over 5 million acres of Vietnam from 1961 to 1971 by the USA. It is estimated that 400,000 Vietnamese were killed by the chemical, a statistic that doesn’t take into account the generations of Vietnamese to this day that are inflicted with severe birth deformities, cancers, skin diseases and increased rates of miscarriages.
On home soil, the story of Monsanto®’s absolute indifference to suffering is similar, albeit often taking on a quieter persona due to thousands of those affected being often too afraid to speak out. Now banned chemicals such as PCB and DDT have been key ingredients in Monsanto® products throughout their history, and sadly the intergenerational effects of careless and illegal handling of such chemicals are yet to be felt. Fortunately, public awareness has grown exponentially in recent years, giving a voice and momentum to the now 13,000 lawsuits against them, and in one high profile case in 2019, Monsanto® was ordered to pay $2 billion to a couple whose cancers were caused by the company’s ubiquitous home product, Roundup.
It is, however, difficult to translate the devastating ramifications of Monsanto®’s actions through a few selected examples. Monsanto® is inconceivably ingrained into the fabric of our agricultural systems, and the media spotlight is, in reality, only one strand in a never-ending tapestry of propaganda, cover-ups, misinformation and contracts that ensure their continuing monopoly. Ownership, power and profit are the cornerstones of Monsanto®, and the number of their victims is truly uncountable.
Mathieu Asselin’s exhaustive photographic study, Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation, aims to confront and expose the injustices of Monsanto®. Made over five years in Vietnam and the USA, Asselin exhumed and consulted hundreds of documents - press excerpts, judgments, archives, films, and testimonies – which were then placed alongside his own photographs of the lands and lives affected by Monsanto®. The work also illuminates countless advertisements used over the company’s history to advance their feigned public image of philanthropy and care for those who are in reality firmly under their thumb. Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation is not the voice of an activist, but the voice of a concerned citizen amongst the thousands of associations, individuals and “NGOs who oppose with tenacity and at their own risk the perils of the Monsanto lobby”.
Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation is also part of a larger shift in the documentary tradition. It sits alongside other artists who are challenging the complex social and political realities of today with an astute mix of strategies, ultimately aiming to uncover hidden structures of oppression and corruption. Asselin is aware of the shortcomings of the photograph as supposed truth and the façade of objectivity, and as a result has bolstered his argument with a myriad of materials, approaches and layers that come together with force and emotion to meet a controversial subject. Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation looks outside of the restrictive frame of the photograph and has renegotiated traditions to result in an explicitly engaged work of enduring resonance.
Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation has received worldwide appraisal and has won several awards. It has been exhibited at numerous prominent institutions and events including Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles; Foto Museum FOMU, Antwerp; European Parliament, Strasbourg, and Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt amongst others. It is the most widely shown exhibition produced at Les Rencontres d’Arles, and will be shown at Monash Gallery (PHOTO 2020), Melbourne, and the Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, later this year. The book of Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation received international acclaim and was awarded the Aperture Foundation First Book Award in 2017, the Dummy Book Award Kassel in 2016, shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in 2018 and received a special mention for the Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award in 2016 at The Rencontres d’Arles.
After years of intimate proximity to the horrors of Monsanto®, Asselin’s primary intention for the work remains the public dissemination of knowledge about this important subject. Achieving this aim, however, requires the work to be acquired, held and exhibited in its entirety, always. Allowing the sale of individual pieces would fragment and diminish the integrity of the message, instead lending itself to private and largely unseen hands. This critical condition to the work became the foundation of this newly conceived wooden crate. Made in collaboration with Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, The Ravestijn Gallery and Ricardo Baez, the crate acts as an all-encompassing container for the pressing conversation Asselin believes is needed to be had. Combining forty-six photographs, twenty advertisements, eleven documents, a first edition copy of the book, memorabilia, a curatorial text and digital access to the entire project, the case is a rare opportunity to preserve and further the urgent messages within the work and go some way to making those responsible for so many atrocities accountable.
Mathieu Asselin (b.1973, FR/VEN) works and lives between Arles and New York City. He began his career working on film productions in Caracas, Venezuela, but shaped his photography practice in the United States. His work mainly consists out of long term investigative documentary projects.
Box contains:
PHYSICAL
15 XL prints (size 90 x 120 cm)
31 M prints (size 48 x 60 cm)
50 S prints (size 32 x 40 cm) incl. facsimiles of all the
original archival material
1 Monsanto book / 1st edition / English/ June 2017
22,0 x 28,0 / 156 pages/ ISBN 978-2-330-07805-8
1 curatorial description
1 seed
101 captions in three languages English/French/Dutch
1 original memorabilia
NON-PHYSICAL (pdf)
8 large text files for walls
1 newsprint file + his logo.
2 videos in usb
2 wallpapers files for print (600 x 400 cm & 400 x1050 cm)
Their ruthless dedication to innovation and profit has, however, been littered with deadly consequences, perhaps most horrifically evident in Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a weaponised herbicide manufactured by Monsanto® and used on over 5 million acres of Vietnam from 1961 to 1971 by the USA. It is estimated that 400,000 Vietnamese were killed by the chemical, a statistic that doesn’t take into account the generations of Vietnamese to this day that are inflicted with severe birth deformities, cancers, skin diseases and increased rates of miscarriages.
On home soil, the story of Monsanto®’s absolute indifference to suffering is similar, albeit often taking on a quieter persona due to thousands of those affected being often too afraid to speak out. Now banned chemicals such as PCB and DDT have been key ingredients in Monsanto® products throughout their history, and sadly the intergenerational effects of careless and illegal handling of such chemicals are yet to be felt. Fortunately, public awareness has grown exponentially in recent years, giving a voice and momentum to the now 13,000 lawsuits against them, and in one high profile case in 2019, Monsanto® was ordered to pay $2 billion to a couple whose cancers were caused by the company’s ubiquitous home product, Roundup.
It is, however, difficult to translate the devastating ramifications of Monsanto®’s actions through a few selected examples. Monsanto® is inconceivably ingrained into the fabric of our agricultural systems, and the media spotlight is, in reality, only one strand in a never-ending tapestry of propaganda, cover-ups, misinformation and contracts that ensure their continuing monopoly. Ownership, power and profit are the cornerstones of Monsanto®, and the number of their victims is truly uncountable.
Mathieu Asselin’s exhaustive photographic study, Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation, aims to confront and expose the injustices of Monsanto®. Made over five years in Vietnam and the USA, Asselin exhumed and consulted hundreds of documents - press excerpts, judgments, archives, films, and testimonies – which were then placed alongside his own photographs of the lands and lives affected by Monsanto®. The work also illuminates countless advertisements used over the company’s history to advance their feigned public image of philanthropy and care for those who are in reality firmly under their thumb. Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation is not the voice of an activist, but the voice of a concerned citizen amongst the thousands of associations, individuals and “NGOs who oppose with tenacity and at their own risk the perils of the Monsanto lobby”.
Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation is also part of a larger shift in the documentary tradition. It sits alongside other artists who are challenging the complex social and political realities of today with an astute mix of strategies, ultimately aiming to uncover hidden structures of oppression and corruption. Asselin is aware of the shortcomings of the photograph as supposed truth and the façade of objectivity, and as a result has bolstered his argument with a myriad of materials, approaches and layers that come together with force and emotion to meet a controversial subject. Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation looks outside of the restrictive frame of the photograph and has renegotiated traditions to result in an explicitly engaged work of enduring resonance.
Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation has received worldwide appraisal and has won several awards. It has been exhibited at numerous prominent institutions and events including Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles; Foto Museum FOMU, Antwerp; European Parliament, Strasbourg, and Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt amongst others. It is the most widely shown exhibition produced at Les Rencontres d’Arles, and will be shown at Monash Gallery (PHOTO 2020), Melbourne, and the Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, later this year. The book of Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation received international acclaim and was awarded the Aperture Foundation First Book Award in 2017, the Dummy Book Award Kassel in 2016, shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in 2018 and received a special mention for the Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award in 2016 at The Rencontres d’Arles.
After years of intimate proximity to the horrors of Monsanto®, Asselin’s primary intention for the work remains the public dissemination of knowledge about this important subject. Achieving this aim, however, requires the work to be acquired, held and exhibited in its entirety, always. Allowing the sale of individual pieces would fragment and diminish the integrity of the message, instead lending itself to private and largely unseen hands. This critical condition to the work became the foundation of this newly conceived wooden crate. Made in collaboration with Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, The Ravestijn Gallery and Ricardo Baez, the crate acts as an all-encompassing container for the pressing conversation Asselin believes is needed to be had. Combining forty-six photographs, twenty advertisements, eleven documents, a first edition copy of the book, memorabilia, a curatorial text and digital access to the entire project, the case is a rare opportunity to preserve and further the urgent messages within the work and go some way to making those responsible for so many atrocities accountable.
Mathieu Asselin (b.1973, FR/VEN) works and lives between Arles and New York City. He began his career working on film productions in Caracas, Venezuela, but shaped his photography practice in the United States. His work mainly consists out of long term investigative documentary projects.
Box contains:
PHYSICAL
15 XL prints (size 90 x 120 cm)
31 M prints (size 48 x 60 cm)
50 S prints (size 32 x 40 cm) incl. facsimiles of all the
original archival material
1 Monsanto book / 1st edition / English/ June 2017
22,0 x 28,0 / 156 pages/ ISBN 978-2-330-07805-8
1 curatorial description
1 seed
101 captions in three languages English/French/Dutch
1 original memorabilia
NON-PHYSICAL (pdf)
8 large text files for walls
1 newsprint file + his logo.
2 videos in usb
2 wallpapers files for print (600 x 400 cm & 400 x1050 cm)
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