Speculating on tentacular infrastructures

Trains, water pipes and many other infrastructures whisper, and sometimes even roar. There is the sound of metal gripping water tanks, the echoes of deep wells, the soothing sounds of rivers stifled in irrigation ditches, and the sudden rumble of the train. The visual and audible life of infrastructures reverberates through the landscape of the immense green banana and palm oil plantations of the Zona Bananera, Colombia. Walking what was before a banana emporium built by the United Fruit Company involves knowing how to move within infrastructures. This ethnographic photo-essay is a reflection on the everyday becoming of both infrastructure and peasant zoneros. ‘The Octopus’, as the United Fruit Company is still called by locals, expanded its tentacles through a wide variety of materials. As much as tentacles can violently suffocate they can also be tamed and tricked. By repurposing infrastructures speculative and creative lives are lived, felt and imagined.