A NEW exhibition about how international chocolate companies exploit workers across the world is to open in one of the region's premier art galleries next month.
The display at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima) opens on Saturday, February 6 and focuses on how Western companies operate in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Artists from the Congolese Plantation Workers Art League and the Institute of Human Activities (IHA) have created the show which features a number of sculptural self-portraits produced by subsistence farmers and plantation workers.
Originally moulded from a tributary of the Congo River’s clay and then 3D printed and cast in chocolate, the sculptures tell the story of a partnership between the IHA and members from the cocoa and palm oil plantations across the country.
Big chocolate companies can pay just 25c to plantation workers and most work for just $20 (about £14) a month.
Mima Senior Curator Miguel Amado said: “This exhibition is not just about aesthetics, it is about ethics. Formerly these plantation workers were lacking the resources to break free from an activity that extracted almost everything and gave little back.”
The display at Mima will include ten works and a public resource area where people can find out more.
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