From Plantation to Pavilion: Weaving Ecologies in the Plantationocene

At 135 million tonnes per year, bananas are the world’s most widely consumed fruit. But they also generate nearly 115 million tonnes of agricultural waste annually. From Plantation to Pavilion examines bananas through the lenses of species origins, migrations, and embedded traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), addressing their entanglement with histories of trade and land occupation. It explores repurposing banana waste as a building material, highlighting the resilience inherent in TEK as a counter to the ecological disruptions caused by industrial agriculture. From Plantation to Pavilion envisions a future where architecture and TEK foster equity, ecological balance, and sustainability.