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Chocolate is one of the most popular sweets in the Northern Hemisphere, consuming more than 3 million tons of cocoa beans a year.
The project focuses on the geopolitics of cocoa, the environment in which cocoa beans are grown, as well as the ecological challenges that come from cocoa cultivation, such as forest degradation and biodiversity loss. The design focuses on environmental issues and farmer rights in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa-producing country, and reflects on the links between West Africa and Europe throughout the cocoa value chain.
Monopolies of major multinational transport companies impoverish cocoa farmers, creating a consumer-driven character in the chocolate value chain. How can we overcome the cocoa transport monopoly and rethink the injustices faced by West African farmers in new and creative ways? This project proposes a radical vision for the infrastructure of cocoa in which the main elements - the ship and the port - take on a new meaning in planetary urban space.
This video documents the global value chain from cocoa to chocolate.
This video shows the global distribution of chocolate production and its impact on local ecosystems, resulting from intensive farming distributed along the Equator.
This video shows the different cocoa plantation systems, from mono-cocoa plantations, to mixed and diverse cocoa agro-forest developments.
This video shows the capital distribution in the global value chain of chocolate, including the identification of global monopolies and institutional failure.
This video illustrates the environmental degradation in Côte d'Ivoire as a result of intensive cocoa farming.
This video proposes a redefinition of cocoa's global trade infrastructure to tackle social injustice and global inequalities.
This video presents radical new architecture and landscapes resulting from urbanising global trade infrastructures in response to the lack of planetary institutions.