« Planted » is a work that explores the human condition through the lens of submission, exploitation, and bodily transformation. The central image of the human body, covered with snails and flies, invites the viewer to reflect on how the individual, both human and animal, is subjected to external forces that slowly and inexorably transform them.

The figure depicted in this piece is frozen in a posture of waiting and exhaustion, their face marked and dim, like a domesticated or exploited creature. This image suggests the idea of an individual whose identity and will have been erased by systems of power that exploit them, reducing their body to a mere utilitarian function.

The snails, slowly moving across the body, symbolize this gradual, almost imperceptible transformation that overtakes the individual. These creatures evoke the passage of time, the creeping invasion of social norms, and also humanity’s relationship to nature.

The flies form a symbolic bridge between human and livestock. They link the human being to a world in which bodies, whether human or animal, are exploited, colonized, and often forgotten. Flies are invisible witnesses to the silent suffering that unfolds within these systems of exploitation. They highlight the universality of this suffering: whether human or animal, both are subjected to the same forces of exploitation, objectification, and reduction to the status of commodity.

This human figure, like livestock, is branded and « planted, » fixed in a role imposed by the system. The image invites reflection on how bodies are exploited and depleted in an endless cycle.

I seek to explore this dynamic of submission and dehumanization, to shed light on the exhaustion and transformation imposed by external forces beyond our control. The human body, like that of livestock, becomes the terrain of systematic exploitation, a body marked by the signs of its commodified status. The snails and insects thus become symbols of this insidious exploitation, which dehumanizes and reduces the individual to a state of suffering and silence.

The work invites the viewer to become aware of the invisible mechanisms underlying the exploitation of bodies, and to reflect on how systems of power govern our existence.