This weekend, the Fallen Fruit art collective opens two ambitious fruit tree projects in Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico, simultaneously.
Founded in 2004 as collaboration between artists David Burns (Art BFA 93), CalArts Critical Studies faculty Matias Viegener and Austin Young, Fallen Fruit investigates issues of urban space, neighborhood and public vs. private property—through the role that fruit plays in different cultures and societies.
EATLACMA is a project that begins this weekend with fruit tree adoptions at the LACMA campus on Sunday. Fallen Fruit members will hand out 150 (mostly tangerine) trees with planting instructions. The collective’s only request is that these trees be planted in public space or on the perimeter of private property.
The tree adoptions play on the theme of beginning a seasonal growth cycle. Fallen Fruit and LACMA will curate nearly a year of programming within the museum’s permanent collection and in its gardens. The exhibit Fallen Fruit Presents The Fruit of LACMA opens on June 27, and ends on Nov. 7, 2010, with a day-long event of more than 50 participating artists and collectives to “activate, intervene, and re-imagine the museum’s campus and galleries.”
Acción Fruta Urbana | Fallen Fruit
Also this weekend, Fallen Fruit is coordinating an “urban action”–Acción Fruta Urbana–in Tijuana. Beginning on Feb. 6, and for six week after, 21 trees in barrels will be lined against the Mexican side of the border in the Colonia Federal neighborhood. The barrels will be painted in collaboration with Peruvian artist Giacomo Castagnola,who now calls Tijuana home. After the six weeks, each tree will be adopted by a neighborhood resident, who will determine its final placement.
Acción Fruta Urbana is part of the Performing Public Space exhibition, curated by Owen Driggs, at the Casa del Tunel art space in Tijuana. The show “evokes bodily actions and artworks that interrupt the conventional structuring of public space.”
Part of Fallen Fruit’s intention for the Tijuana project is to call attention to the neglect of urban neighborhoods on the border and around the world. And with both tree adoptions, the collective hopes to provide people with the tools to change the character of their own cities and lives.