Blood on the leaves represents the large number of innocent lives that have been lost within Karen State due to ethnic cleansing and genocide. This series was inspired by the famous anti-lynching poem written by Abel Meeropol called “Strange Fruit”. In the first verse there is a line that says, “Blood on the leaves and blood on the root”. Even though this poem is about slaves being lynched in America during the slave era, the same feeling is portrayed with the Karen people who are being hunted down, tortured, imprisoned, bombed, shot and killed just for their Ethnicity by the Burmese Army throughout the 74 years of war.

Within the series anything that gives off a photosynthesis has been turned pink and red, representing the amount of bloodshed that has been spilt within the jungle of Myanmar. Many of the people who have been affected by this war are civilians, particularly farmers who have been living simple lives for generations. They are innocent, but they have been sucked into the war due to the Revolution for a free Karen State. The reason why the Burmese Army attack these people is simply because of them being guilty by association. Everyone knows someone that is in the Karen Military.

Even though hundreds of thousands of Karen people have fled to neighbouring countries, many have stayed and have taken refuge within the Jungle. Many families have been displaced for generations, they are constantly moving to find safety and have been unable stay long enough to call their place of refuge a home.