guerilla bananas
A supermarket intervention
The banana is one of the symbols of the German-German history and the reunification of Germany. For the West it was the symbol for a dynamic economy and for the East for a economy of scarcity. But the fruit was also emotionally overloaded, West Germans referred to East Germans disparagingly as »east primates« because the banana had been so rare on the other side of the Berlin Wall. After the fall of the wall the banana was the first good that was sold out and politicians campaign in the East by giving bananas away.
To remember this fact of German-German history, on the 25. anniversary of German reunification bananas were punched with slogans in supermarkets.




If the banana skin gets hurt the spot is turning brown through the process of oxidation. Based on this principle the slogans »bananas for everybody«, »ostprimate« and »25« were punched with custom-made jewelry into the banana peel. The greener the bananas the later the message will appear on the skin and supermarket customers will see the words just after buying the fruits.
The rings were 3D printed out of metal. The knuckle could be only printed out of plastic due the regulation of weapons. Handmade needle pads (acrylic glas, needles) were attached to the rings and the knuckle.