… transmission from the artificial forest (pt. 1) …

‘Rubber Dreams of its Lifetime’ has been finding its shape for around two years now. Thank you for finding your way to this introductory instalment of our strange journey so far.

K.S: 

Rubber is a perfect example of the commodity fetish: we consume it every day, but are mostly unaware of the social, historical and environmental conditions of its production. Rubber is also a fetish commodity: it has inspired spiritual and sexual obsession in both ancient and modern times. It is the only material in the world that could serve as the joint poster child for both phenomena. There must be some individuals out there who fantasise covering themselves in freshly pressed palm oil, but their proclivities are not popular enough to inspire a global subculture. And, in the class of materials that do inspire funny feelings in a more substantial niche of people – fur, leather, spandex – rubber is unique in its sheer irreplaceability and importance as an industrial material.

There is no substitute for natural rubber in many of its key applications. Although synthetic rubber now comprises about half of total consumption, it cannot fully match certain key properties of natural rubber, such as elasticity and ground conductiveness. Surgical gloves are still made from natural latex, because it is less likely to tear at a critical moment. A Malaysian rubber expert told us that plane tires cannot be made from synthetic rubber, because they might unleash the electricity built up in the aircraft body upon landing, electrocuting the passengers as soon as they touch the ground. That may or may not be entirely true, but it makes for a striking mental image. 

I first became really aware of rubber in February 2023, after starting a new job as a policy researcher. One of my first assignments was writing a report on the Cambodian forestry sector. While working on it, I learned that nearly a quarter of the country’s remaining forests were converted into rubber plantations between 2001 and 2015. Across Southeast Asia, around 3 million hectares of trees were cleared to make way for rubber over the same time period. This came as a surprise to me. I had thought that the natural rubber industry was long past the point of aggressive expansion, that palm oil and durian were all the rage now. Didn’t we already come up with synthetic solutions?

After work, I brought this up to my partner Bart, a Singaporean artist-filmmaker and near-lifelong rubberist (his fateful encounter with a pair of household gloves took place at age five). His section of the wardrobe is incredibly shiny.

‘As a gimp, don’t you feel complicit in the deforestation of Cambodia?’ I asked him, mostly as a joke. ‘Even a little bit?’

‘No’, Bart asserted, but I could see thought spirals whirring into motion behind his eyes. Something similar was happening to me.

These two variables – rubber-driven deforestation and the fetishistic consumption of the material – could not be forced into a causal equation. Tire manufacturing takes up three quarters of the rubber produced in this world each year, with the remainder finding its way mostly into gloves, cables, and various little machine parts. Even within the sub-sector of apparel, rubber is predominantly used in more ‘practical’ items: rain boots, elastic waistbands, sneaker soles. The shined-up latex worn by all the gimps in London and Berlin combined would barely represent a fraction of the world’s demand. At the same time, there is an undeniable connection between these things, made all the more delicious by their apparent incongruity. 

This became the starting point for the ‘Rubber Dreams of its Lifetime’ project, which has been generously supported by Kone Foundation over the last year. The grant allowed us to conduct fieldwork and art production in mainland Southeast Asia for six months. We spent time in places connected to all parts of the rubber supply chain: farms and factories, tire shops and fetish clubs. We spoke to smallholders and share-tappers, estate-owners and CEOs, middlemen and factory workers, and  – of course – local gimps.

The price of spilt milk 

Ever since the inception of the industry, rubber has been subject to a violent boom-bust cycle. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the average price of tree-milk languished below $1 per kilogram. This slump ended with a surge of demand from ‘emerging’ automobile industries. In 2010-2011, the average price of rubber exceeded $3, peaking at $6.2. It soon came falling down, however, and has barely recovered since. Over the last ten years, the average price has remained below $2 per kilogram, even as living costs continue to increase across the world. 

Around 85% of the global supply of natural rubber is produced by smallholders across Southeast Asia and (increasingly) West Africa. They are extremely vulnerable to price shocks, and the ongoing rubber recession has pushed many into poverty. 

When prices were going up, producers started planting more trees. However, rubber trees take an average of seven years to grow. Once these baby boomers reached maturity, demand had cooled down, and the glut of new rubber entering the market depressed prices further. Growers were effectively punished for responding to the demand signal.  

The volatility of the market has dramatically reduced the attractiveness of rubber as a cash crop. Many smallholders are now converting their rubber plantations into more lucrative and less labour-intensive crops, such as palm oil (which has a higher toll on the environment). Others are abandoning their lands entirely in search of better-paid work.  

For five years in a row, the global demand for rubber has been growing faster than the output. The looming supply crisis is making some headlines, but impact on prices is still lukewarm.

While commodity-driven deforestation remains a major problem in many regions, an equally urgent question seems to be: are we going to run out of rubber? This should not concern only gimps, but everyone with a stake in the modern world.

Upstream uphill

Most of our research itinerary focused on monoculture rubber farms of varying scale, as they represent the predominant type of production. Monocultural plantations were introduced to Southeast Asia by colonial powers. They displaced traditional forms of polyculture, which were denounced as less ‘efficient’. Monoculture has remained the norm in the post-colonial era, even as the inherent problems of this system are becoming more acute.

A lack of biodiversity disrupts the natural metabolism of the soil; micro-organisms cannot thrive on rubber leaves alone. Farmers need to compensate by using more and more chemical fertilisers. This causes a vicious cycle of soil degradation, which in turn reduces productivity, the very thing industrial monoculture is supposed to excel at. 

Monocultural farms are also more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Many regions of Southeast Asia have been experiencing heavy rains during the ‘dry season’, when rubber is usually produced. The trees are tapped at night, usually between 2AM and 4AM, because the latex flows better when the temperatures are cooler. It is usually collected a few hours later in the morning. Some farms produce solid ‘cup lumps’, which are left to coagulate for two or three days after tapping. If rain falls between the tapping and the collection, it will ruin the latex, making it unsellable. While this problem is not unique to monocrop farms, its effects are more severe for people whose only source of income is rubber.

We visited rubber farms in southern Thailand in January, usually the peak of the dry season. On some days, the rain was so heavy we had to shout over it. The farmers told us they had lost 40% of their usual income, or more. We watched them unceremoniously pouring watery milk to the ground.

Hotter and wetter weather also increases the spread of leaf diseases, which can reduce latex production or stop it completely. On some farms, the trees were almost completely naked. 

Smallholders are well aware of the root causes of these issues. The problem is that they lack the financial resources required to change their operational model.

Agroforestry

One promising alternative to monoculture plantations is agroforestry, where rubber trees are planted alongside timber species or other crops. Introducing other species can increase biodiversity, while also providing alternative sources of income. Timber species are considered central to this model, because they represent a relatively safe long-term investment. 

To understand more about this approach, we collaborated with the Rubber Agroforestry For Sustainability Foundation (RAFS) in southern Thailand. Based in the University of Hat Yai, the RAFS team comprises academics with first-hand experience of agriculture. They are working together with local smallholders who want to transition away from monoculture. 

The RAFS team brought us to all kinds of agroforestry plots created by their partners. Some of the smallholders were more than a decade into the transition; their mature forest farms invited comparison to the ‘jungle rubber’ systems that used to be common in the region. Other had only recently started diversifying their crops. Even at these early-stage farms, we could see earthworms crawling in the topsoil, shrubs and flowers shooting out spontaneously. As soil health improved, the smallholders could also use fewer chemical fertilisers, or even transition into organic farming. The difference with monocultural plantations was striking.

Dr. Sa Ra, the chairman of RAFS, describes agroforestry farms as jigsaw puzzles. You need to study the specific environment of each plot carefully to know which species can thrive in it. Once these parameters have been established, there is a lot of room for creativity. The most minimal definition of an agroforestry system is simply ‘rubber + timber’, but the farmers in the RAFS network are going far beyond that, introducing stingless bees, bamboo, pineapples, and much more. No two farms we visited looked the same. 

Despite its benefits, rubber agroforestry remains rare, especially outside Thailand. The main obstacle to expansion is money. Although studies find that agroforestry can be more profitable than monoculture, changing your business model is always risky. Most smallholders would require some financial support or assurance to make the leap, while the majority of rubber buyers are simply looking for the cheapest price they can get. RAFS has found business partners – a local factory and a European condom company – that commit to purchasing agroforestry rubber at a premium price. However, this level of demand is still a drop in the elastic ocean. 

There is also a risk that agroforestry will become yet another tool for greenwashing. It is easy to market as a sustainable alternative, because it is beneficial for soil health and resembles traditional farming. Several big corporations have started investing in agroforestry as part of their sustainability programmes, but their overriding objective is still increasing profits and intensifying productivity. More glaringly, the Indonesian government has announced plans to plant food crops together with timber species as a way to ’compensate’ for escalating deforestation.

It is clear that agroforestry cannot work if it is merely slapped on systemic issues as a ‘green’ band-aid. It must be part of a more holistic transition away from the approaches that are making our planet unlivable.

Rubber & revolution

Since our project aims to illuminate the present as an accumulation of the past (without falling into fatalism), we also visited sites related to the complex histories of rubber in Southeast Asia. The material has left its trace not only in the form of industrial capabilities, but also as lingering trauma of colonial violence and labour exploitation. Many monuments are dedicated to the sacrifices of rubber workers across the region, evoking both the shared aspects of this history, and the contrasting ways it unfolded in different localities. 

In Vietnam, we visited the Phu Rieng Monument, which commemorates the founding of the first southern cell of the Indochina Communist Party on a Michelin plantation in 1929. The cell was founded by rubber ‘coolies’ as part of a larger push to mobilise workers in strikes and anti-imperialist actions. In Thailand, we went to the Red Drum Memorial, which is dedicated to the victims of anti-communist killings in the 1970s. On the site of the memorial, suspected communists or sympathisers were burned alive in barrels of oil. Many of the victims were rubber workers, as the massacre occurred in one of Thailand’s main latex-producing regions. A rubber forest stands beside the memorial. 

Many revolutionary movements emerged from the crucible of the rubber plantation, radicalised by the alienation of labour, yet with vastly differing trajectories.

Rubberism with Southeast Asian Characteristics

The burgeoning rubberist scene in Southeast Asia was another focal point of our research. Gimps are, after all, the most dedicated demographic of end consumers. Southeast Asian rubberists are also at the forefront of the shifting dynamics of consumption. 

Rubber was brought into the region as an export cash crop, and domestic consumption has been restricted in many countries; in some places, it still is. In Vietnam, the procurement of rubber is only authorised for industrial purposes. This means that aspiring gimps can only purchase imported rubber suits, which is extremely costly. A 20-something enthusiast in Hanoi told us he’s saving up for his first suit. Even though he only intends to purchase a simple readywear design, he expects it will cost around nine million dong (nearly 300e), which is around the same price one would expect here in London. 

In Bangkok, we met with ‘Mr.S’, a man who is trying to almost single-handedly make rubberwear more accessible to Southeast Asians. Mr. S has transformed a sleepy cul-de-sac in northwestern Bangkok into the ‘FUN District’, effectively the HQ of fetishism in Southeast Asia. Alongside ‘ForFun’, a shop selling latex clothes and other fetish gear, the district hosts a bar/event space, and perhaps the most decked-out BDSM dungeon in all of Southeast Asia. We went to a few events at the ‘500 Cafe’, including a special ‘Gimpmas’ party filled with merry gimps and jolly pups.

Collaborators-in-Rubber

A big portion of our trip was dedicated to art production. Throughout our six months in SEA, we regularly collaborated in experimental filmmaking with rubber farmers, scientists, performance artists, and gimps. Collaboration has been central to our methodology from the start. It ties together our goals of working in an iterative way, spontaneously responding to new environments, and facilitating encounters with the Other(s) as a source of new perspectives and knowledge. Bart will share a few encounters in SEA below.

B.S.W.L:

RAFS

A notable collaboration, though not as experimental as our magical realist film productions, was our work with RAFS. When we first embarked on this trip, I was almost completely clueless on agroforestry while Kaisa had some background information on it through her previous day jobs. Perhaps that explains why this immediate, physical experience of agroforestry facilitated by RAFS was especially impactful to me. Encountering in person this foreign concept that is usually reduced to an abstracted eco-fantasy in the West, opened my eyes to the potential it affords to farmers confronted with both toxic market economics and worsening climate changes. At the same time, being able to witness and learn of its limitations and difficulties against widespread adoption served as a warning against the kind of propagandic green-washing that is often employed by unconscientious states wishing to use agroforestry as a magical buzzword to hide their plans of mass deforestation for expanding cash crop plantations. 

Lacquer Fetishism

Our openness to tangential encounters brought us on a seemingly unrelated trip with one of our Vietnamese collaborators, Khoa, to the province of Phu Tho, where he arranged for us to stay with a lacquer farmer, Hoa, and to observe their nighttime work. Khoa is also a competent and thoughtful lacquer artist, and his close relationship with Hoa is a result of his critical interest in the supply side of the lacquer material he uses. On this trip, we first encountered lacquer trees and learned that lacquer, like rubber, is a latex that is procured by tapping the trees in the dead of night. This unexpected parallel between lacquer and rubber, and indeed, Khoa’s practice and our project, felt serendipitous and further enhanced our awareness of many issues that concern the  supply chains, histories and fetish-value of both lacquer and rubber.  

When a Gimp meets a Tapper

One of our biggest uncertainties from the outset was whether it would be possible for the productive rubber world to come into contact with that of fetishistic rubber, especially in Southeast Asia where rubber fetishism is still an obscure phenomenon. And, as with anywhere else, we were unsure how acceptable is it to introduce a nominally subversive element into workplaces, even without any lascivious intentions. 

And yet, when it finally did happen, and it happened numerous times after, the Encounter between gimp and tapper was… warm and full of curiosity, which is unsurprising in retrospect. On a trip out to a plantation in Chanthaburi, we delegated our documentarian efforts to a fully-clad rubber gimp. When the tappers met him, they thought that he was in an alien costume but upon examining the material more closely, they immediately realised the connection. ’Oh, of course, it’s rubber. Do you need protection from insects or something,’ they chuckled and got on with work.

The gimp scurried about in the dark trying to keep pace with a fast-working tapper, while the two chattered about everything to do with rubber and the work to procure it. Later on, another seasoned tapper offered to teach the gimp how to tap a rubber tree. He was unimpressed with the gimp’s effort, and out of mock frustration, held on to the gimp’s hand to guide his knifework.

The funniest reaction we got was when we divulged to a Thai organic farmer the retail price of the rubber hood I was wearing. She was shocked (and maybe a little inspired) to learn that such a small quantity of rubber could be worth so much. Rubber fetish gears are quite likely the most expensive rubber product by weight one can peddle. 

There is also something to be said of our (urban city folks’) expectations of how farmers would react to something like rubber fetishism. If we consider the conditions of labour required of rubber tapping, where one has to spend several nights a week doing repetitive menial labour alone in pitch darkness, having zero direct consumption of the output of their labour – surely then, the realisation that there are people who would pay a ridiculous amount of money for and derive an inordinate pleasure from rubber clothing, is probably revelatory, or at the very least, very amusing to the rubber farmers.

What’s next

After the journey, we’ve started editing the materials into a body of work comprising moving image works, creative non-fiction, photographic experimentations, performance, and a documentary-fantasy film. Some of the work will be exhibited for the first time at the GHOST festival in Bangkok this autumn. 

We are now looking for further opportunities for collaboration and sharing our work, particularly with artists, researchers or organisations based in Finland. If you would be interested in hearing more about our project, please do not hesitate to get in touch via kaisa.annikki.saarinen (at) gmail.com and/or bartseng (at) gmail.com.

We will be sending out more transmissions in the future, so please stay on the frequency.