Pineapple Express

The Big Pineapple in Southeast Queensland

As part of the ‘Harvest’ exhibition at QAGOMA, the artist collective Fallen Fruit (David Burns and Austin Young) are presenting a site specific commission of the pineapple. Find more info here.

Queensland, Australia is known for their pineapple production. Australian’s eat 20 million new gold pineapples a year. Pineapples were brought to Australia by missionaries in 1838. The first commercial planting was established in a current day suburb of Brisbane in the early 1840s. The commercial industry took form in 1924 and a modern canning plant began around 1946. The canned pineapple is the third most canned fruit behind applesauce and peaches.

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Fresh pineapple was a symbol of prestige and social class. Pineapples were rented to households by the day for display at parties. The same fruit would then be sold to more affluent clients who actually ate it. Charles II, stands on a terrace. To the left, a man, possibly John Rose, the royal gardener, kneels before him and presents him with what is said to have been the first pineapple grown in England.
RCIN 406896 © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

“Too ravishing for moral taste . . . like lovers’ kisses she bites—she is a pleasure bordering on pain, from fierceness and insanity of her relish.” -Charles Lamb (1775–1834)