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This image and caption most clearly connects the use of pesticides to larger practices of nation building and “improving” not only individual lives, but also collectives as a whole. Interestingly, this poster creates a distinction between “real” and “fake” pesticide, though this conversation of realness vs. fakeness is vague (of course on purpose). The caption includes a larger investigation of the company sponsoring this poster and places within a larger geopolitical conversation/scale.

I’d like to know more about the connection between pesticides and the sort of greenwashing campaign that is going on here. Pesticides as toxic as an end all be all conversation isn’t nuanced enough and I think messiness is what is being alluded to here, but I think you could dig in a bit more. What does this making of a healthy nation actually look like? What type of narratives are being pushed? What does the infrastructure around those narratives look like? What are the connections to larger global conversations/networks? 

It seems to be a picture of a found poster while travelling through western Kenya. The jagged split within the post caught my eye. It’s imposing a clear dichotomy, just as a conversation between real vs. fake establishes a clear boundary and binary. I think this is complicated in the caption, but the poster itself pushes that binary forward. 

I wonder how the complication that is brought out in the caption could be brought into the image more.. Maybe something could be photoshopped over the image? Last year, one of hte participants photoshopped the chemical makeup of DTE onto the poster. I wonder if something similar could be done here? Maybe as a way to debunk this fake vs. real binary they are attempting to draw out. 

I think the chemical and environmental toxicity is drawn out here, BUT I would love to see more about maybe political toxicity or even a broader conversation on toxic nationalism? I think that could add some layers that are alluded to in the caption, but could pull the convo back to different layers of toxicity.