Sarafadeen Bello plumbs the futures of blue economies on the shores of Lake Zurich

Hailing from Lagos, a city built around a lagoon and shaped by water, Sarafadeen was an artist in residence at Rote Fabrik over the summer from July to September 2024.

His project, „Plastic Foodtures”, uses seafood and marine ecosystems as a focus through which to critically engage with topics of gender, environmental degradation, soil and water pollution, food insecurity, livelihoods, waste management and the juxtaposition of food decay with the lifespan of plastics.

During his residency Sarafadeen experimented with the Japanese “gyotaku” fish printing technique and presented the research-oriented project as an installation at the end of his residency during an open studio event.

“Plastic Foodtures” is a literal and metaphorical speculation of a dystopian future where (micro)plastics from fishing gear and micropollutants from pesticides, fertilisers and cosmetics rule our foodscapes and marine systems, becoming part of our foods. It imagines a future where the roles and functions of fisher(wo)men have been redefined from hunter-farmers to cleaner-carers. Touching on global hyper-consumerism, the project seeks to highlight how plastics and chemical use serves as a starting point for our behavioural modification, gradually bio-hacking our bodies and drawing attention to the relationship between fish consumption and nutrigenomics in an information-driven age.

Sarafadeen’s other area of interest lies in discourse around decolonisation and restitution. During his time in Switzerland, he was able to attend the recently opened exhibition “In Dialogue with Benin” at Museum Rietberg, which presents Benin’s artistic legacy from a historical and comparative cultural perspective.

For Sarafadeen, the residency provided an opportunity to develop his project, but also to pause and reflect on his practice and experiment with new things. He enjoyed visiting Zentralwäscherei in Zurich and other museums and exhibitions around the country. Through his exchanges with other artists from Switzerland and around the world, Sarafadeen realised that despite coming from different contexts, they all share many common interests, challenges and goals.