Posts Tagged ‘Fallen Fruit’

It seems only natural to combine our two first loves – art and food.  Yet that combination is rarely accomplished in a tasteful manner — that is, until recently.

The artist group Fallen Fruit has pioneered a considerable effort that is changing the way we view Los Angeles’s urban landscape, one tree at a time.  Fallen Fruit, founded by Matias Viegener, David Burns, and Austin Young, mapped areas of Silver Lake that have public access to fruit trees — i.e. free, locally grown, organic food.  This project continues to connect those with too much and those with too little of that good stuff.

Fallen Fruit’s next big project is at LACMA and is aptly titled EATLACMA.  Both today and tomorrow, Fallen Fruit will be giving away free fruit trees to kick off their year-long investigation into food, art, culture, and politics.  And keep your ear to the ground as their program unfold seasonally, including the exhibition Fallen Fruit Presents the Fruit of LACMA and day-long event in November.

An apple a day never tasted so good – or so free for that matter.

For more information about Fallen Fruit, click here.  For more information about EATLACMA, click here.

We (21st century Americans) take so much for granted.  Our food supply is but one example.  And unless you’ve read Squeezed or Fast Food Nation, you’re probably blissfully unaware of the journey most of our food takes to reach the local market.

Consider the banana.  At one time, the banana was an exotic tropical delicacy as mysterious to some as the block of ice which makes its improbable appearance in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude. (Fans of the book might remember that it is the establishment of a banana plantation that leads to the demise of the story’s fictional village, Macondo.)  Nowadays, bananas are ubiquitous and we don’t even blink an eye while chomping into a piece of fruit that originated halfway around the world.

The banana was first brought to Colombia over a century ago by the United Fruit Company.  As is often the case when outsiders reap the natural resources of poor countries, copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears were shed.

United Fruit marks Fallen Fruit’s first solo show and runs from June 17 through September 29 at LACE.  It premieres a new body of work generated during Fallen Fruit’s recent residency in Colombia that features a series of photographs and video installations exploring the social, political, and pop history of the banana.

Fallen Fruit is a collective of artists and activists comprised of David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young. It originally started as a neighborhood project to map a section of Silverlake charting fruit trees – neighbors were then encouraged to share fruit with each other through direct exchange as well as partaking of ripe fruit that had fallen beyond the perimeters of a neighbor’s property.  Fallen Fruit’s website now has several neighborhood fruit maps for your perusal.

When you combine art, activism and food, good things abound.  Fallen Fruit uses fruit to get people thinking about social connections in new ways so that we consider how we can improve the dynamic of our societies — one apple, orange, and banana at a time.  Yum!!

-By Peter Lee

Fallen Fruit’s United Fruit  will be at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions until September 27.