Director and artist Renzo Martens cannot come to terms with the fact that the world's wealthiest get rich by exploiting the poor. Museums also have unethical neo-colonial practices, exhibiting artefacts that have come into their possession in a dubious way while being sponsored by corporations like Unilever, which pays workers less than a dollar a day on its palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Martens decides to test a crazy idea that would turn the logic of today's art market on its head: former plantation workers will start creating sculptures out of clay, exhibiting them in New York and making money from art. Will the director succeed in turning these villagers into world-renowned artists?
Director and artist Renzo Martens cannot come to terms with the fact that the world's wealthiest get rich by exploiting the poor. Museums also have unethical neo-colonial practices, exhibiting artefacts that have come into their possession in a dubious way while being sponsored by corporations like Unilever, which pays workers less than a dollar a day on its palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Martens decides to test a crazy idea that would turn the logic of today's art market on its head: former plantation workers will start creating sculptures out of clay, exhibiting them in New York and making money from art. Will the director succeed in turning these villagers into world-renowned artists?