Questioning the essence of art: The window display on the Food Floor can be viewed as an attempt to do just that.

As a motif, the humble banana was chosen owing to its cheap abundance and because it is far removed from what is considered a luxury; it’s also used for comedic effect, to add a childish note, or as a metaphor for discrimination.

Hominids like orangutans love bananas for their high food value, while we humans in the same family evaluate them differently, such as by consuming them as products or attaching additional value to them through packaging, novelty, production background, and price. Not limited to bananas, perhaps we tend to view any object based on preconceptions formed through such habits.

In one of the windows, banana peels are collaged with materials that symbolize luxury, creating objets d’art suggesting handbags. These handbags are enjoyable as fashion items, dressed in various values and concepts such as jewelry, crocodiles, caviar, muskmelon, and other materials.

In the other window, a banana tree laden with fruit is made to appear like a sparkling chandelier, something that symbolizes luxury in human culture. It’s an interesting exercise to look at bananas from a different perspective, by peering over the shoulder of a spellbound orangutan.

Yasuko Sato, Art Director