Marika Vandekraats: The Colonial, Familiar, Nostalgic, Radical, Transformative Life of the Strawberry

HumDrum Press, 2024, softcover, 104 pages, 10.5 x 15.5 cm

The story of the strawberry is troubled.

Troubled because of what becomes uncovered as we unpick the  systems within which this sweet, nostalgic fruit is embedded within. From rural English fruit-picking sites, to agricultural fields in Spain, to the sides of North American highways, the strawberry exists in many formations. Its multiple (his)stories—starting from its hybrid colonial roots, trace the many hands that have encountered this fruit on its journey into our mouths, its avid consumer.

The Colonial, Familiar, Nostalgic, Radical, Transformative Life of the Strawberry encompasses the stories and histories that shape the human relations that are entangled with the strawberry. It unpacks the abstractions between the fruit and the exploitation often overlooked within its production, to explore how, through  varied social, political, geographic and economic contexts, the story of the strawberry lives on through all of our hands, mouths, and memories.