People are naturally attracted to bright colours. They grab our attention, make us feel energised and serve as an easy way to differentiate one thing from another. It’s the reason supermarket aisles resemble packages of highlighters. Some of the brightest shelves are those filled with harsh chemicals, including the cleaning and gardening aisles—this is where American artist Kirsten Stolle drew her inspiration for her series Pesticide Pop currently on view at Nome Gallery in Berlin. The series and exhibition of the same name call attention to the ugly truths that are being sold in pretty packaging by big agribusiness and chemical companies. “You’re drawn in because of the bright packaging on the products and they seem fine,” Stolle says. “Then you realise that you’re dealing with harmful products.”
One of Stolle’s main subjects is glyphosate, the herbicide that serves as the key component in the controversial weed killer, Roundup weed killer. A number of works focus on a New York Times advertisement from Bayer, which bought Roundup from Monsanto in 2018, assuring consumers of the chemical’s safe usage. Stolle uses different methods, including red pen annotations and glitter redactions, to counter the company’s narrative and reflect the findings of the World Health Organization, which has said the chemical is “probably carcinogenic”. She also calls attention to the tens of thousands of claimants who are suing Bayer for cancer linked to their use of Roundup.
Left: All That Glitters Right: Annotated. Courtesy of the Artist
All of Stolle’s pieces in Pesticide Pop were created by sifting through documents and advertising material, rather than working from a blank canvas. In It’s Time (2019) the artist uses 10 lightboxes to show stills from a Monsanto commercial, taking excerpts from the feel-good dialogue to tell different stories. The script is edited down to “It’s done/ This is the best part / When we talk about / what’s going on / More and more / we’re the food / At Monsanto / working everyone / using more/ It’s time.”
The text is referring to both the company’s dominance of patents for certain crops and the way that these seeds are developed in conjunction with pesticides. Instead of creating a chemical to kill weeds that grow around a crop, it is cheaper to create a crop that can withstand a certain chemical. Soy was one of the first crops modified to grow this way. Stolle believes this type of farming process was responsible for her health problems. “I started getting pretty sick about ten years ago. I’m vegetarian and so I eat a boatload of soy,” she explains. “I started getting intestinal problems and I couldn’t understand why. Then I went to the doctor and through my own process of elimination, when I didn’t eat soya I felt better.”
This discovery sparked a curiosity that led her to research Monsanto, which produces close to 90 percent of soybeans seeds sold in America. One of her first discoveries about the agricultural behemoth was that it produced the herbicide Agent Orange, which was used by the United States in the Vietnam War to kill vegetation that provided cover for the Vietnamese fighters, but since has been linked to major birth defects, cancer and neurological issues. “I want to call out what I think is the disinformation,” Stolle says. “They’re not telling the whole story.”
‘Pesticide Pop’ runs at Nome gallery in Berlin through 11 April.