Coffee Beans

The majority of coffee beans n the world are a result of slave labour. The ivory coast in Africa is renowned for slaves and the coffee bean trade. Children as young as 8 are being sold by their parents or kidnapped to "farmers" who make them work in fields all day without any pay. I think that it is interesting that luxury goods such as coffee beans are linked and the result of such an illegal, horrible and inhuman work.

I began drawing slaves, but using coffee beans as their heads, suggesting that these people have lost their identity to the coffee bean trade and also that their owner only sees them as a source of the product, which turns to money on his behalf. 

I also began looking at Kara Walker's silhouettes she has made simply out of black and white paper, commenting on slavery, race, gender and equality. I myself was inspired and began creating silhouettes out of coffee beans of slaves on white paper.