Soft & Hardground Etching
Chine-Collé (with Cirrus White) on Chautara Lokta, Pink
18 x 12 inches
2008
ed. 20
The print series "Flores Muertas" depicts the issue of where our flowers come from, what kind of hidden real costs and dangers lie behind them and questions global capitalism as a real danger to people and the environment. Columbia is the dominant producer of U.S. cut flowers. To produce cosmetically perfect blooms for export to the U.S. and Europe, Columbia's 80,000 flower industry workers, mostly women, perform long hours of physically grueling and hazardous labor.

In an award-winning documentary from Columbia by Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva, "Amor, Mujeres y Flores" (Love, Women and Flowers), one worker says "Flowers are very beautiful, but they're a health hazard. Behind every flower there is death." In a 1995 article for the Global Pesticide Campaigner called "New Harvests, Old Problems: Feeding the Global Supermarket," Lori Ann Thrup writes that rose and carnation producers in Ecuador use an average of six fungicides, four insecticides, and several herbicides. The situation is worse in Colombia, where flower plantation workers near Bogota are exposed to 127 types of pesticides. In addition to the human toll, flower farms have polluted and depleted Bogota's streams and ground water.

Pollinators—most often bees, butterflies, birds, and bats—who transfer pollen from one flower to another are critical to fruit and seed production. In fact, animals provide pollination services for over three-quarters of the staple crop plants that feed humankind, and for 90% of all flowering plants in the world. The flower industry takes it’s toll. The average North American or Western European consumer only cares about buying a flower bouquet for less than $20.00.

Think twice, you are buying a pretty cheap death.