In “Ein Land Weiss Waschen” translated to “To Wash a Country White” the piece investigates the legacy of racial capitalism when Switzerland claims colonial exceptionality. The chocolate industry in Switzerland began to thrive at the turn of the 19th century. The same time that the colonial empires began to outlaw importation of African enslaved people  while simultaneously legalizing forced sharecropping (neo-slavery). To Wash A Country White speaks to the continued extractions from African communities such as that of Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Congo. Switzerland‘s billion dollar chocolate industry requires the main ingredients of its product cocoa beans and sugar to be imported. This demand is tied to high poverty rates, deforestation, monopoly on food crops at the service of industry, child/people enslavement among other forms of oppression at the expense of African well being, on the African continent.

The blue parrot with the black beret nods to a childhood story book character Globi. The parrot was originally created by the company Globus to normalize and introduce “native products” being acceptable to touch since they underwent whitewashing through production and treatment. More specifically, it was the creation of a White Negro Caricature or the Mohren (called Blackamoor in English)  that accompanied the cartoon parrot which is the most insidious in the aftermath of harmfully accumulating stereotypes tied to Blackness. The crows reference an advertisement against immigration by the conservative Swiss party, which uses crows to attack the Swiss flag in 2010 as a symbol for immigrants “stealing” jobs. Last but not least there’s also a cage to reference the historical implications of humans zoos, Such the racial captivity of Amanoua Kpapo an African Albino woman from Accra who was advertised as ‘A Black Negro Woman’.