Archive Matter A Camera in the Laboratory of the Modern

A journey through the United Fruit Companys photo archive and its documentation of corporate expansion into the Caribbean.

The establishment of the United Fruit Company as a global political agent with its banana plantations was met with considerable resistance. Now the companys photographic records are the focal point of Archive Matter as it examines photographys historical and political impact through the argument that this overlooked, but important, archive made capitalist expansion into the Caribbean possible.

Author Liliana Gómez examines the images from within their optical unconscious and via the archives silences and omissions. The implication of these silences, Gómez argues, is the attempt to conceal the violence embedded within the realities of the plantations daily operations and corporate efforts to modernize the Caribbean.