Cacao Tree

2026, single-channel video, 20:00 min

Cacao Tree (2026) is a video work that examines botanical exoticism through Theobroma cacao. For the work, I filmed a living cacao tree at the Helsinki Botanical Garden, cacao specimens from the herbarium collections of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, and a Fazer chocolate confectionery box from the 1950s.

In 1978, a cacao sapling was donated to the Kaisaniemi Botanical Garden by Fazer’s (Finland’s first chocolate company) Director of Research at the time. The tree currently growing in the garden is a descendant of that sapling, which originated in the North Solomons, Papua New Guinea. The cacao specimens I filmed at the Finnish Museum of Natural History were collected at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among them the botanist Christian von Steven. During the time Finland was under the rule of Sweden, and due to Sweden’s part in colonial trade, it was possible to import cocoa to Finland in the 1750s and onwards. The work is supported by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.