An African track and field athlete maintains his body balance on a rolling globe through peculiar dance movements. Unrestricted by joints, he swings with gravity in each leap, and the coffee he holds in his hand scatters in parabolic arcs, soaking the athlete’s entire body.

In history, this plant-based beverage from the African continent has been influenced by colonialism and capitalism, leading to its global trade. Even today, the lasting effects of colonialism persist in the current coffee supply chain. To make the market afford the raw material prices, millions of people in coffee-producing regions in South America, Asia, and Africa live in even greater poverty. The close entanglement of cash crops with local economies has made producers dependent on this unequal relationship, leaving them with no way out.

An Indigenous athlete, with a Coca-Cola bottle balanced on his head, is performing a classic acrobatic act known as “juggling” He carefully maintains his balance, ensuring the Coke bottle doesn’t fall. When the audience presses a button, the athlete jumps upward, utilizing physical inertia, causing the two Coke bottles in his hands to collide as he performs a ritualistic gesture. In fact, the use of Coca-Cola as sacred water in the indigenous tribes of Chiapas, Mexico, is not uncommon.

The character in the artwork maintains a strange balance, trapped in a dilemma, much like the impact of capitalist expansion and globalization on the local economy and culture. It represents a delicate and inextricable state, reflective of the complex influence brought upon by capitalism’s reach and its globalizing effects on local communities.