This book is the truth, mess, joy, despair & research of a bunch of students, artists, kids, tutors, architects, friends, guests, strangers, Bosco & bananas; After the storms in the rarely wet desert of Banana Mountain. This booklet founds its origin in the adventurous project called Dirty x Banana: an off grid open air exhibition-party-festival featuring functional and sculptural interventions and performances, co-organised and co-curated between the Dirty Art Department of the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam and the educative project of Banana Mountain Orgìva.

Today, we are a few students of the Dirty Art Department collecting images, text and shapes. We are all together to share our best day ever experience in this publication as explorers of territories in a situation where the research mattered. This experience affirmed us as much as it confused us and it lost us as much as we found each other. In between trust, rejection, we were individualized as much as it brought us together but we’ve changed for the best through portal**, possibilities, freedom and responsibilities, escaping, reuniting, eyes, tears, clouds and stars; tryouts of situations, a context of possible dreams coming true.

Dirty x Banana happened in February 2022 during one to six weeks. Near the river exploring rocks, collective possibilities and boundaries through community gathering, sudden season changes, workshops, cooking, theme nights, costume creation and a lot of caring/sharing. Between building our surrounding furnitures and utilities known as the best dry toilet with panorama view, hot shower in a spiral of cane, tents on slopes, kitchen where Mari would not sit but we hope applause. Rope, paths and a dome from the waterfall neighbors and games; we warmly want to welcome you to the crisálida of our journey.

The first who arrived were five or six people. We spent the first week building up stuff, toilets, kitchen, tents, basically everything.
So we could live properly. We were halfway living in the Finca, where we had a nice shower. When the second group arrived, we moved to the camp. We waited until the rest started to arrive.
We spendet the first week from morning to evening, just building stuff.
We didn’t do anything else, we didn’t go out, we didn’t see the town or anything.
We just build stuff.
There were some designs from REDACTED.
And we did a freestyle compost toilet.
Yes, the compost toilet looked amazing.
It was a good freestyle, I’m very proud of the toilet.
There was a triangle seat, it looked like a rocket.
How did you cleaned it?
You don’t. There’s a deep hole underneath you, you can easily have one ton of crap. Really DIY.
Also the shower looked nice, really outdoor spa vibes.
The first week was also super cold, really hard to fall asleep.
We was eating a lot.
We were just trying to get as prepared as we could.
You arrived on the 22nd.
When I arrived after seeing the building team, I was so impressed with all the things they did.
The kitchen, the shower, and the toilets. I came at night and was a bit tipsy.
I arrived at Malaga in the afternoon.
No in the late morning. I took a bus to Motril.
Then I missed a bus to Órgiva. REDACTED and REDACTED picked me up. They were very happy to be out of the camp.
REDACTED took the train, 5 days of travel to arrive.
We all met in the Finca, everyone was having dinner.
Nice food, super atmosphere.
We went to the sauna directly, they even prepared the sauna.
Nice introduction. REDACTED was there.
We were talking a little bit.
The morning after we directly had a meeting.
It was super nice it was during breakfast at the Finca, after that introduction of what we wanted to do, and what was already done, we were focusing on what had to be done that day.
Fixing the kitchen, getting the groceries.
We were just trying to find a system of how to organize ourselves, it was crazy. The rhythm was... pfffff.
But felt so good to do physical stuff!
I was wanting to join the build-up team, but I got a commission work.
So I postponed my trip.
I postponed my departure for a week. Just before I left Amsterdam. Russia invaded Ukraine. My mental state was kind of weird. I started collecting memes about the war.
When I landed I was weird. But I landed eventually. Picking up the bookbinding kit. I was psyched about it. We ended up not using it. No, we used it once in Malaga. On the street.
I arrived later on the 23 and I met REDACTED at the airport. REDACTED came to pick us up. We went to a fancy restaurant, we ate hamburgers and meat. I recorded everything, I had the cameras.
But I think someone deleted the footage. The first moment when everyone saw us.
It was a beautiful moment.
REDACTED recorded everything, and set up a confession booth the first week, some of us used it. It was a camera that you could turn on and confess.
I used it a couple of times, I did acting as well.
I used it as well, there was a lot to confess, haha.
Whatever. That was my first day and
I loved the camp. We had a place to have dinners and we had shelter against the weather.
The weather conditions were tough. We had a sandstorm, strong rain, strong wind, SNOW. Small, but flakes. Still, that shows you how cold it was.
It was hardcore for everyone, in terms of weather.
But somehow also sunny and warm during the days.
I mean, we left the rainy amsterdam and was all day outside sunbathing.
I felt like it was a cold summer, not a cold february.
We were all dressed up, all the time. Sleeping dressed.
My body heat is crazy. So I was sleeping nearly naked.
Your face was just barely peeping out of your sleeping bag.
I was putting blankets around my ears.
The groups arrived gradually. On the 22nd, REDACTED arrived.
On the the 23rd, another bigger group, a week later 4 more, a week later 4 other people.
How could we introduce them to this situation?
Each time we had to expand our community and facilities, to facilitate all the newcomers.
A lot of the problems we discovered were related to the constantly shifting and changing community, in numbers and dynamics.
This change of rhythms meant that problems were not personal issues regarding people.
There were some. But we had to reorganize each time, what are people eating?
Who needs to get transported?
This happened four times. Every time a group of new people arrived, we had to take 2-3 days to adapt to the new group.
REDACTED, REDACTED, and REDACTED came.
That was a turning point. We didn’t even notice they arrived. At that point. I felt that we needed to do something.
We needed to find a way to welcome people.
It would be nice to talk to them. And see how did they felt?
I have no experience with the shifting experience of a newcomer because from day 1, I was there.
We created this whole society, and I saw it from the beginning.
I remember that they arrived.
Then we arrived. That week was working super well, 10 people are quite effective.
The more we were adding people, the more complicated became the experience.
It would have been different. If we were all there from the beginning, us 20, all from the start.
15 was too many, the meetings were getting too long. We did organize ourselves as best as we could, having teams responsible for specific things.
Time table for the kitchen was pretty important. The dishwashing was a huge thing, the timetable was divided into cooking and cleaning.
I’ve never eaten so well, I ate so well.
Food contest. Everyone was showing off. There were so many memorable meals.
Everyone was trying to show something belonging to their culture.
Everyone was proud to share their meals. We didn’t have proper cooking conditions. But there was enough to make a 20-person meal.
I experimented with a pan quiche. Nice experiments. Some playful ones as well. There were comfort foods. Taco and hamburger.
Finally some trash food.
Did you say church food?
No, trash.
We cooked in pairs. REDACTED chose the pairs.
Because he was responsible for managing the kitchen.
REDACTED was responsible for the kitchen and the organization of the kitchen.
I gave it up eventually.
REDACTED was responsible for food procurement. REDACTED was in charge of collecting the money.
Sounds like fieldwork village life to me.
It’s a bit like here. The more we are. The less responsibility we take individually.
This mindset of: “I have to survive.”
Took over and pushed out any relationship with another.
We were so close. We were so deep in that valley. We were trapped, we can say that we were trapped.
We had to deal with a lot of things. Problems that we don’t deal with here. Daily shit, necessities, and logistics. How do you make group decisions? A meeting with 20 people can be super overwhelming. In the beginning, we’d have 2-3 meetings a day to discuss problems.
Then we decided to have one meeting per day, and no meetings on the weekend.
We never did a meeting a day but we did do daily check-ins before dinner, that was nice.
No pressure though.
There was not a gathering experience during the 2 last weeks, even though we had a goal.
It was not a feeling of we are a group together. It was more that, now everyone has to experience their thing. There was balance.
But also frustration in people that invested themselves in the group.
Conflicts between small groups became group problems. With a few more weeks.
We could have found this balance.
We created a set of rules. Each one of us had a role and responsibility.
If one person didn’t perform their responsibilities, it was a missing link in the chain.
And everything broke down. If someone forgets to put the lights in, then in the evening you can’t cook.
I guess that was you who forgot the lights?
Yeah, every day.
It was super easy to fuck things up if someone didn’t do their thing.
The mood went down, the whole group was affected. It was a very mental experience.
No showers for 8 days, it was socially exhausting. Some days you’re just off.
The shower was not working for the last week.
We ran out of water because of construction work.
We ran out of gas, so no hot water.
Water pressure was also complicated.
Someone told me they only showered twice. During the whole trip. But I don’t want to spread rumors. LOL
It’s also super hard to find your private space, 3 or 4 people in the tent.
It is never: “I have time on my own, I can chill and be in the shower.”
It was only a month, It was not awful.
I feel that you are exagerating the situation...
I mean, we were surroundet by a non common new reality but we were outside, in a beautiful place, we even had access to a home-made sauna and walks by the river, with amazing lights, animals, people.
In the comfort of making. Speaking with each other.
You could go for a hike alone if it was good weather.
I did one hike on my own without a phone.
You came back so fresh.
Everyone was tired, and I was like: “I had the best day of my life.”
I was mad at you because you went without the phone.
When we went hiking we were coming back at night.
The hikes were nice because most of us were trying to explore the surroundings, to see what kind of resources there were.

How the environment expanded itself beyond the valley.
You don’t realize that the valley is closed if you want to go out of it on foot. You have to walk up or cross a river, and there is no bridge.
It was nice to escape from the camp, to think about what was going on. We discovered a clay carrier, a clay source, it was beautiful.
The clay was melting on the rocks and dried, you had to take the powder off the rocks and used it to make ceramics. On the kitchen roof extension, there was a pile of Sahara dust clay from the sandstorm, which I collected and brought to Amsterdam.

We had the river there and the river was orange because it contained a lot of iron. It looked like the whole river was oxidized. I had this idea of not wanting to produce any work. But I still wanted to capture these colors and these happenings, natural happenings. That’s why I decided to place a piece of fabric and let it soak up nature. I found purple clay and purple walls. I couldn’t understand the colors so I was just playing with it. I collected some clay and mixed it with water, and that is the result. I didn’t want to paint with it, so my approach was more the fabric. Let the fabric be exposed, to soak in the colors.
The whole day was planning... You can only do one action a day. I went to a river. I put some rocks in a pile. Came back. Nailed together rocks and sticks today. Whoo, what a hard day.
The tools were so far, and it took so long to get them. If you forgot something. The logistics were intense.
Then we had the quad. It made some problems. Because the ATV was supposed to be used only by REDACTED. We received it a few days before they arrived.
We borrowed it from a friend of REDACTED. We had to take care of it. Everyone took it for a ride.
The problem was that it was there for accessibility.
But they couldn’t ride it because it was too dangerous to drive with one hand.
Someone took it in the middle of the night and did donuts outside of REDACTEDs tent.
After the toughest meeting about, how we have to respect each other. 15 min later. I could hear the shouting. Motherfuckers. LOL.
We wanted to let it go with the quad ride. We didn’t know he was sleeping in the tent.
Any way. The next day. It’s not chronological but it’s ok. We lost track of time there.
I think it messed up our system and that was interesting. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It messed with our perception of time and space.
At one point I realized my phone is always out of battery, and I can’t check the time.
But I knew when the sun went up, I woke up with the sun every day.
6-7ish is when the sun is up, but not yet hitting the valley. I was telling the time without the clock.
The sun would hit us around 10 in the valley.
And at 4 you would be in the shadow again.
Short time slot for filling up your energy.
There is also a twisting point. If you would be in the sun all the time, you would be more exposed to the wind.
REDACTED made these amazing-looking and tasting breakfasts.
It was a self-service breakfast.
You could tell it was his, because of the good presentation. We ate well.
When I woke up. I would try to make breakfast for the people in the kitchen.
The morning people had their group.
The early risers people were waking up at random times.
We didn’t have this morning routine.
Only once I was first.
REDACTED and REDACTED were sitting around the fire.
Smoking and having a coffee. They were mom and dad.
I would make some breakfast. That was a normal morning for me.
Our first lunch together was the risotto. Nice.
Why was it the first lunch?
It felt like it was for me, it was the first meal we shared.
That was the one when the sand went into the food.
And we broke the bowls on the first day. Because the table flipped.
We had meals together before.
But not with the tent. That was the day. We finished the table. It was the third day. First sit down, formal dinner.
We borrowed the tent from a German guy.
A banana mountain dad.
He and the kids came and we built it up.
We left a proper summer kitchen.
When we arrived we found no fish, we went for 2h walk and we didn’t find them. But we made a primitive fridge for beer and wine.
The lack of fish made us invent the fish. The drink from 1 pm onwards was very important. I had a beer in my hand all the time, I didn’t even need a cup holder.
REDACTED designed a nice lighting source in the tent, with bottles and headlights. We didn’t think of it before arriving but it was pretty important. We made the bar, I started painting, and REDACTED joined me. We started doing less necessary things, like painting for ourselves. With REDACTED we were mainly doing that, working around the kitchen. Trying different materials.
Once we considered that we were finished with the facilities. I started with building what I wanted to share with the people there. The first attempt at the head horn, installing it in different places in the valley. It fell a lot, and
I repaired it a lot. It was directed to the school to attempt to have communication between us and the school. On the bus on the way there, I didn’t realize we were going to work as much on the communal facilities. I started thinking about what I could propose. I had fantasies and personal desires for people to communicate with each other. I like its representative of how it went.
We learned a lot from the banana peops and kids. They have this sociocracy way of discussion and communication, which is based on consent. They propose and then they discuss. Until they reach consent.
Consent for them means: Good enough for today or enough to work with. Something like this. They can work with this, and it’s okay for today. They can adjust in the long run, and make it suitable for everyone. That’s what consent means for them. The sociocracy way came with a lot of practical things. Check-in. Check out. Hand signs. (shaking hands agree... there is no hand sign for not agreeing) It never really worked with disagreements. When we were not agreeing. Everyone was raising their thumbs.
There was this thing of some people putting up their thumb and just talking without waiting their turn.
I must say you did a good job with the moderation.
You have authority.
If people disagree with the system. Then they disagree to work together.
And it did allow people not to join the meetings.
And you know that people will make decisions.
We had meetings with 4 people. Meeting in 10 minutes. It was luxury.
We decided on some great things and it worked.
Everyone accepted that if you are not joining the meeting, it means that you accept all the decisions that are made.

Raised fist = Consent
Jazz hands = Agree
Thumbs up = Want to speak
Timeout = Translate
There is one person who is responsible for putting together the agenda of the meeting. And then they vote for a moderator. The moderators pay attention to the time and people who want to speak. For me, it is like curating the discussion. Sometimes you can see the same person raising their thumb again and again. And you have to decide sometimes if it is just too much. You cannot let people talk too much.
They don’t really vote for moderator. They suggest qualities and strenght that they search in a moderator and then they propose someone. This mean that it’s not always the same persons that will take responsabilities.
You did also manage to say 30-second answers.
Why did you say curation? Is it a matter of space and time?
You have to be careful. You have one hour. You have 20 people. They will just dissolve and spread out. So you compress. You are careful of the time. In that sense also the space. You cannot have a meeting with 20 people in a space that is not suitable.
The start of the relationship with the kids, was the workshops, from them to us and vice-versa.
Workshops were meant to create relations to be invited into their space, and for some of them, it was the beginning of a festival process.
It was intended mainly to connect and build a relationship.
When everyone arrived they made a welcome evening for us.
They gave us a tour and cooked us dinner.
They even did a flamenco performance.
The first check-in meeting was received with some rebellion from the banana kids and youngs.
We was so intrigued by them.
But the day after, at the second workshop with them.
Then it was 3 days of workshops. it was one of the best moment, starting to really meet them and be in the
school field.
I can say it was a bit nerve-wracking from both sides.
Exciting, tiring, and the thing that connected us the most, was bench ball.
They played almost every day. Football with benches.
Play with your hands. Pass the ball to your teammate.
Score by passing the ball to your teammate on the bench.
You stand on the bench. The more you play the fewer players.
The first team to get everyone on the bench. Wins.
Bench ball was a highlight, between us and them, without any input-output from both sides.
Of the 45 students, it was a group of 15 that was super engaging with us, the rest was in and out, dependet on the days.
I was with REDACTED and REDACTED we wanted to go to the football pitch and see who was playing.
I didn’t realize it had such an impact on the kids.
We had a campfire at the end and talked about it.
They said it was the best moment of us being there. I almost cried.
That was our introduction to the group, through playing.
I remember one of the best moments when we played football with the kids.
REDACTED came two times afterward approaching me, asking.
When we will play football again?
And he remembered you and REDACTED and said you guys were so good.
They asked me to work more around the banana school. I had a lot of nice interactions with kids. I did a lot of football breaks to play with kids.
During our stay, after the building part, the workshop was a big step into discovering the community of
Banana mountain.
Here some details about the different field of research and discoveries.
They were having so many workshops before the festival.
We had a week where we scheduled workshops, 5 days of school instead of 3.
The week before the festival they came to my workshop during a sandstorm. And before that, they had a food workshop, and before that just played around. There was no performance in the end, but I keep in touch, to make the track happen.
On the morning of the sandstorm, I placed my biggest fabric in the river. It was quite a lucky moment.
I managed to save all the dust in this piece of fabric.
The color for that day. it’s like a nice filter.
How many days did it take to make your final fabric?
A week around a week.
Time collapsed. It took what it took.
I put clay on it and left them on. Water was there because it was in the river.
Full moon, which marked the one-month anniversary, of the build-up team’s arrival.
REDACTED always talks about the wolf and at night we found his tent with the shadow of the wolf.
Apocalyptic day.
You could see the big mountains behind before and now you couldn’t see shit.
The toxicity of the air was almost maximum. Suddenly we had to wear masks. It was the day when everything collapsed. People with asthma were dying. A sandstorm happens every year 2-3 times. But not this scale.
People went crazy. Sand crazy. It was one of the heaviest they had ever seen.
It went to France even, to Paris.
I made a heat gun with a can and fire inside [lol] I loved it.
The atmosphere was really fun. There was this fight. People got mad. The night after we ordered pizzas. To have a good time together. It didn’t solve the problems.
17th. It was pizza night? It was the night we went to the platform? That was when we went for pizza. The full moon was the day after the trouble. It was the day after the sandstorm that we had the trouble/doomsday.
(it created more LOL)
It was nice to have pizza. It was a great pizza place.
The piano died in the sand storm. The sound was amazing, all the dust went inside and solidified, and all the keys were frozen.
I have an audio recording of REDACTED playing the piano, and REDACTED singing, they played wicked games.
Sometimes we had no water or food, and the organization before the festival was a mess.
Some days we didn’t eat, it was Friday, and you did burgers Friday evening.
No food, no cookies, nothing, and then we had a super burger evening.
This burgers…
All the food was for the parents and the kids that came, we had a small taco.
Everyone was so stressed out just before the festival, that there were very random moves. taking the car without thinking of the global map of things needed.
REDACTED took her role in the organization very seriously, and brought a lot of good energy, just before the festival.
Tried to cheer us up, organized pretty well not just the festival, but the cleaning schedule.
Talked with everyone to see how we were going to leave, and what were our needs.
It was important to have new input, just before the end. Someone being positive 100% “let’s go to the sauna”
The Workshop format became the structure of the festival, we just generalized it more.
Collecting everyone’s ideas, we thought about how to do that most simply.
We completed a survey with 6 questions, to build an idea map of everyone, and their intentions.
After the survey we had different teams, the light team was only guys.
So we made a new team, but it stayed the same people in the end.
Every time something manual was coming up, it was always dudes being called to help out. We were insisting a lot say the names of non-male people. It didn’t work though, it’s a running gag.
The festival was great, it was from 16 to 21h. We had a chill after-party.
Chill, seriously?
Amazing.
I still can’t believe we made it happen.
After the storm, i thought it was impossible to manage all the things we wanted to do.
It was the best day ever.

It started with the Poopet show all the families arrived with crowns of flowers.
We were like OK here we are in the middle of this vibe, stressed.
We finished writing the Poopet show, five minutes before.
It was a good mood to start with. The most shitty show, it was funny.
It was the best, it was genius, we couldn’t see you.
LOL. We were hidden really well. It was a good start because it was all of us being together doing it.
A puppet show about poo.
REDACTED was tracking animals by watching their poop. And REDACTED wanted to do a puppet show.
I joined to do the scenery.
There is A VIDEO of it.
REDACTED and REDACTED also wrote the script.
Poops in the valley.
One character found its route and turned out that the character was an olive that thought it was poop because the olive looked like goat poop and then he goes through a transcending experience in a goats stomach where he meets gum that says he needs to stop bullshitting about who he is.
We translated it into Spanish. Which led me to have my first show in acting in Spanish. I didn’t understand what
I was saying. But it was fun. And that was during the festival. I love the aspect ratio. It is like a movie wide format.
I was also bleaching the hair of kids and making a barbershop workshop with someone’s dad.
I had promised something, that I couldn’t give, it ended badly.
REDACTED jumped in, and a lot of people came to help. We only had bio stuff and bleach is not bio.
REDACTED took over with a self-help hair salon, a lot of makeup, and REDACTED did makeup.
REDACTED was cutting hair with me, she was interested in cutting hair and stuff, and I left to wash out the bleach of someone else and when I came back the hair of the girl was very short.
I said: “OMG… What happened? It seemed under control?” REDACTED was super excited about the short hair, and it looked really good. 25 cm gone.
REDACTED had a separate idea, she made people into angels.
They have a rap group that consists of two guys rapping and 3 girls doing vocals with 2 guests.
The parents had to leave because the kids wanted to perform their rap songs, but not in front of their parents. So they left or hid behind a bush. We weren’t allowed to make videos of it.
It was nice that they could share it with us.
The parkour was one of the biggest animations of the festival.
You had to carry an egg through the parkour and it couldn’t break.
From my experience it was super chaotic nerve-wracking, I knew I would be like that, so I gave all the power to REDACTED.
He was one of the guardians who had a whistle and was screaming the rules to everyone. He has a way of talking, within that chaos we decided how to play the game, and the game started. The goal of the game was to finish the Parkour with the most amount of points, which could be achieved via speed creativity, and care.
The ones who cared and were creative won.
Two families, you had to make a family of eight and they were competing against each other.
You and REDACTED as Olympic trainers were something. The corporate t-shirts.
It was nice, looks like the shirt of Marseilles.
At the same time, in the kitchen... it was like the worst moment ever.
They cooked so much during the few days. It was overwhelming.
The kids sang songs all the time.
They said they needed help. But nobody could help.
We were all doing other stuff. They were thinking nothing would be ready.
After I think it was the CANDY TREE, which put an abrupt end to parkour. Then the RAP was announced. REDACTED yelling that no parents were allowed. He was the MC.
The kids had prepared a fireworks workshop, where they made gunpowder stuff. So for the festival, they created a volcano. We walked to the volcano, it was amazing, a transcendental experience.
REDACTED was the expert on explosions and the one who built the climbing wall. He was less connecting with the volcano and why we were doing this in the middle of the field. He was bored because we did the ritual. The only thing he wanted to do was make things explode.
The volcano ritual was to say goodbye, you had to scream.
The parents were really into it.
There was confusion about what was next. And everyone forgot to go to the kiln.
Some people came, we had a ceremony, we fired up the kiln, and we did some Pokémon horoscope readings for kids. It was very cute, just not so many visitors.
It was a very mythical vibe with a lot of smoke in the darkness and fire, the kids were happy about the Pokémon reading and could identify with it.
The podcast was supposed to be on the map and people could go in, before going to the kitchen. Nobody went ahah.
Then it was a massive bench ball game.
It was a race against the light.
We discovered the hidden secrets in us, Greek goddess against?
Don’t judge my team, we didn’t have a name, but we didn’t cheat.
We didn’t cheat either. We won.
Simultaneously making sure REDACTED didn’t steal actual alcohol, a bottle of vodka.
But he didn’t drink it. He thought the juice mix was sangria, but it wasn’t. They thought he was drunk because he drank it all at once.
We decided to go with the flow and say yes he was drunk, but he wasn’t.
When we came back from the bench ball field, the lights were up, it was dark, very beautiful
A lot of moments in the evening REDACTED was taking a lot of pics with his phone.
“Can you dance somewhere else, because
I am documenting for the publication”
Have a bit of fun with us it’s over :)

The car came with REDACTED and REDACTED.
Playing ”Do you believe in life after love?”
A symbol of the end that didn’t work.
The performance was a flop.
But not totally
Because of Cher it can’t be a total flop if there is this song.
DO YOOOUUU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVEEEEEEE

But yes, final answer,
I guess now, we all do.