Sacred Conversations happen everyday. Between a mother and child, a grown man and his father, a friend consoling another friend, a teacher and a student, and more. These small conversations shape our lives, inform how we love, expand our feelings, galvanize the world around us. It is these small moments of intimacy and trust that locks an experience into an understanding for a lifetime. They shape our character. They embolden our moral ethics. They enhance our ability for compassion towards others. It is said that the last one of these kinds of conversations you experienced is, in fact, the last sacred conversation you needed to have. In this way, it is a kind of blessing.

Created for Accademia Carrara, Sacred Conversations is an immersive artwork installation for the stairwell that connects the galleries of the historic museum. The artwork is sourced from hundreds of original photographs taken by the artists that include details from paintings, drawing, and etchings from the permanent collection. Along with documentation from the streets, parks, and piazzas of the city of Bergamo that include a variety of local fruits, flowers, birds, religious icons, and more. The title of the artwork ‘Sacred Conversations’ invokes a message about how the past relates to the present and often informs the future. And also, how sometimes in our lives, we travel from a place of darkness into light.

The artists explain that “‘The artwork is about the ritual of “place.” A type of consciousness celebrating everything everyday. The walking. The hellos. The arrivadecis. The thank yous and the welcomes. Bergamo is a continual fountain of greetings all throughout the day. In the piazzas, palazzos, the parks, the walking streets, the monuments, the cafes, the cathedrals, and on and on…”.

The collection at Accademia Carrara is often spiritual, and as artists, we became holistically inspired by the work of Lorenzo Lotto as well as the compassionate perspective of the entire collection. We spent many days exploring Carrara’s galleries and archives and photographed details. We looked for everyday objects in the collection – fruits, flowers, small animals, people’s hands, insects, pollinators, and more. These common elements of everyday life seem to form a bridge from the past into the present that connects all of us in our own unique pathway along the sacred journey of our lives. 

To create this artwork, we immersed ourselves in the city of Bergamo. We walked all of the streets and alleys of the old city on the hill called “Citta Alta.” We explored cathedrals, monasteries, castles, parks, cafes, and libraries. We met with the city’s historians, and we toured the streets and historic buildings with expert guides. We photographed things that stand out in public spaces. We documented elements from the historic library, the cathedrals, the opera house, the botanical gardens, and details throughout Bergamo.   

“This site specific artwork from our exploration of Bergamo considers the architecture of the building as the frame. The artwork itself becomes an experience for the visitor – a journey from darkness to light or from night into day. The visitor is the subject or protagonist. This is a type of metaphor for an everyday journey – and also a spiritual journey.,” says the artists’.

Our new artwork created for Accademia Carrara, Sacred Conversations is an immersive artwork installation for the stairwell that connects the galleries of the historic museum. The artwork is sourced from hundreds of original photographs taken by the artists that include details from paintings, drawing, and etchings from the permanent collection. Along with documentation from the streets, parks, and piazzas of the city of Bergamo that include a variety of local fruits, flowers, birds, religious icons, and more. The title of the artwork ‘Sacred Conversations’ invokes a message about how the past relates to the present and often informs the future. And also, how sometimes in our lives, we travel from a place of darkness into light.

The city as a common good

September 23 through October 23, 2022

Fallen Fruit’s Monument to Sharing will be a part of the Timisoara Architecture Biennial in Romania.

MORE INFO: HERE

Beta 2022 focuses on The City as a Common Good, in an attempt to investigate the personal relationship that each of us has with the urban space in which we live and manifest. In this sense, Beta comes with concrete tools that encourage the public to become more active and to claim, along with the responsibility, their right to the city.

The general theme of this year’s edition is approached from different perspectives throughout the biennial – in a wide range of formats, some classic, others informal or experimental, like the main exhibition – Another Breach in the Wall – curated by Daniel Tudor Munteanu și Davide Tommaso Ferrando, which will be dedicated especially to the citizens.

Food in New York: Bigger Than the Plate
NOW AT The Museum of the City of New York – Includes art by Fallen Fruit!

Now on view

What’s for breakfast, lunch, or dinner? What we eat is one of the most important decisions we make every day. Food in New York explores the city’s raucous restaurant scene; its ubiquitous street food; current activist efforts to source food locally; and the artists, thinkers, and designers who are imagining new sustainable ways to relate to food. Get a glimpse of the exhibition and hear from MCNY Curator Monxo López and Consulting Curator Fabio Parasecoli on Pix 11. First developed at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and now adapted and updated to look at eating and food systems in the Big Apple, the exhibition is an invitation to feast for a more equitable and exciting future.

In the News
Read more about this exhibition in The New York Times, 6sqft, and TimeOut New York. The latter also listed the exhibition as one of the best things to do in NYC this weekend. Follow the story and connect with us @MuseumOfCityNY. Add your New York food story to the exhibition with #FoodInNYC.

Exhibition created by the V&A and the Museum of the City of New York. 

September 1, 2022 – September 1, 2030

The Fallen Fruit Collective, composed of artists David Allen Burns and Austin Young, has been commissioned to create a large-scale public work of art entitled Monument to Sharing. The installation and renovation of the Wilbur D. May Sculpture Plaza are the first of a multi-phased Museum expansion scheduled for completion in early 2025.

Monument to Sharing involves planting approximately twenty-one fruit-bearing trees, a berry patch and a series of edible pollinators that the public is welcome to “harvest,” inviting guests to explore ideas of generosity, agricultural production and the meaning behind “community.”

According to the artists, pieces of “fallen fruit” can connect us in interesting ways: “We believe everyone is a collaborator in making something special – even the stranger or passerby. We believe that ‘artwork’ has a ‘resonant effect.’ Fruit is a universal gift to humanity and fruit is always political.” Both interactive and collaborative, Monument to Sharing is a unique expression of local history—especially the region’s agricultural heritage. The artists encourage guests to gently pick the fruit they need, while leaving enough to share with others.

Fallen Fruit was originally conceived in 2004 by Matias Viegener, Burns and Young. Since 2013, Burns and Young have continued the collaborative work. The collective began creating interactive installations for a project in Los Angeles for which they created maps of what the artists called “public fruit,” or fruit trees that grew over public property. The artists use cartography and geography to create serialized and site-specific works that embrace public participation. These include photographic portraits, experimental documentary videos, public art installation, exhibition projects and a community-contributed magazine specific to the installation. Using fruit — and public spaces — as a method of exploring the familiar, the collective Fallen Fruit encourages all of us to change the way we see the world.

Other public fruit parks include The Endless Orchard, UB Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Weinland Park Berry Patch and South Side Fruit Park, Wexner Center, Columbus, OH; and Monument to Sharing, Los Angeles Historic Park. Los Angeles, CA. Installations include Paradise, Portland Art Museum, Portland. OR; CRAZY, Chiostro Del Bramante, Rome, Italy; Empire, Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, LA; Teatro del Sole (Theater of the Sun), Manifesta 12 Biennale, Polermo, Sicily, Italy; and Fruits from the Garden and Field, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

Lead Sponsor

Roswitha Kima Smale

Sponsor

Carole Anderson

Supporting Sponsor

Pat and Marshall Postman

Find our NFT collectionwith Culture Vault, Garden 0f Delight. here: https://opensea.io/collection/garden-of-delight

“Love is Blind in Natural History” by Fallen Fruit, Austin Young and David Burns, 2022, is a collage using an image of a statue “Love is Blind” (Amore Accieca) (c. 1875). Donato Barcaglia, in situ with “Sketchbooks and Drawings,” an asynchronous repeat pattern created with historic drawing from the permanent collection of the NGV made by the early explorers and first settlers of Australia. The original artwork installation “Natural History” was commissioned by NGV Triennial, National Gallery Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 2020. Using the medium of wallpaper, Fallen Fruit creates unique designs inspired by seemingly local flora and fauna. “Natural History” 2020, takes its subject matter from Australia and critically combines introduced species of birds and plants with indigenous ones. This is a detail of an immersive artwork created for the European Galleries at the NGV. **The genesis sale of this NFT It one fruit tree planted in a public space for sharing and mapped on endlessorchard.com in honour of the new owner.

Sound by Andrew Stanley (of Yolanda Be Cool).

Artists Create Huge Public Orchard By Mapping Where Fruit Is Available To Pick In LA

March/03/2022

Watch it here: KELLY CLARKSON SHOW WITH FALLEN FRUIT

Los Angeles-based artists Austin Young and David Burns are on a mission for everyone to have access to fresh and healthy food whenever they want through their project Fallen Fruit. The two artists founded Fallen Fruit after noticing how much unpicked fruit is going to waste on city sidewalks and alleyways. They made a map of all existing fruit trees anyone can pick from in public spaces across LA, and are now doing the same in several other cities. Along with the help of their community, Fallen Fruit has also been able to plant thousands of fruit trees all across Southern California. Watch till the end for a huge surprise!

Thank you SPROUTS!

Crazy

Trappola d’Amore / Love Trap, David Allen Burns and Austin Young / Fallen Fruit, custom asynchronous repeat pattern created by the artists and printed with archival watercolor on biodegradable cotton fabric installed onto the ceilings and walls and accessorized with complimenting refinished furniture for the historic ‘Sibille room’.

Commissioned by DART for the exhibition ‘CRAZY’, curated by Danilo Eccher, Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, Italy, 2022.

_________________________________________

Love is many things.

Love is a spectrum.

Love is a condition that is ever-changing.

Love is a truth.

Love is a trap.

Like all of the colors of the world – love is universal, it is hard to describe and yet we all understand it without disagreement. LOVE IS: Like blue. And like red. Green and yellow. And bright orange and deep violet. All at the same time. We assign understanding without thinking about relationships in love and also we determine ideas of beauty and the sublime by using all of the colors of the world as its index. Universally, we agree about these nuanced meanings often without compromise or debate. And yet, there is function to the colors of the world. Functions that are more than about beauty. Beauty is a subjective interpretation that is continually evaluated in all places, in all emotional spaces, and in absolute real-time — simultaneously about every single thing in the entire world. The visual spectrum that represents all things of shape and form also distinguishes the differences of what is banal and what is extraordinary. And above all in exploring the meanings of our world. We all know that there are some conditions about human nature that can not be quite understood in one lifetime. The ideas that ‘love is everlasting’ and that ‘beauty is the truth’. And therefore, it’s complicated.

“Rome is amazing. Cracked our brains open, lit our souls on fire, and broke our hearts on the first day. Without trying. Damn.” That was the social media post that started the project. We walked 80 kilometers in one week. We explored every Cathedral we passed by. We listen to the sounds of the city at all times of day. We smelled the air. We asked questions. We took hundreds of photographs. We looked carefully for the things that repeat and we paid attention to things that stand out. We returned repeatedly to buildings, parks, piazzas, palazzos, historic villas, and small bistros, cafes, and bars. Over and over following the rhythms of the city. We discovered the energy that invisibility connects the public spaces and emulsifies historic ancient prescient symbolic intuitive transcendent meanings of time and space. These transparent songs of the city can be heard at all times of day and night. The follies of life are effervescent and free flowing like the eternal springs from fountains that haven’t stopped for a thousand years.

It would be madness to ignore the beauty around you. The grand beauty. The crazy beauty. The exquisite ecstasy of the moment. That is always present. Everywhere. Right now. Bellezza e Follia.

L’amore è tante cose.

L’amore è uno spettro.

L’amore è una condizione in continua evoluzione.

L’amore è una verità.

L’amore è una trappola.

Come tutti i colori del mondo, l’amore è universale. È difficile descriverlo eppure tutti lo capiamo senza divergenze. L’AMORE È: come il blu. E come il rosso. Il verde e il giallo. E l’arancione brillante e il viola intenso. È tutto, allo stesso tempo. Assegniamo significati senza pensare alle relazioni nell'amore e determiniamo anche idee di bellezza e del sublime usando tutti i colori del mondo come riferimento. Universalmente, concordiamo su queste sfumature di significato, spesso senza compromessi o discussioni. Eppure, tutti questi colori hanno uno scopo; uno che va ben oltre la bellezza. La bellezza è un’interpretazione soggettiva che viene apprezzata continuamente, in tutti i luoghi, in tutti gli spazi emotivi e in tempo reale assoluto, contemporaneamente in ogni singola cosa del mondo. Lo spettro visivo, che rappresenta tutto ciò che ha forma e sostanza, distingue anche le differenze tra ciò che è banale e ciò che è straordinario. E, soprattutto, esplora i significati del nostro mondo. Tutti noi sappiamo che esistono alcune condizioni della natura umana che non possono essere afferrate nella loro interezza, nemmeno nel corso di una vita intera. Idee come “l’amore è eterno”, o “la bellezza è la verità”. E, dunque… è complicato.

Fallen Fruit è una collaborazione artistica formatasi a Los Angeles nel 2004 tra David Burns,
Matias Vegener e Austin Young. Dal 2013 David e Austin continuano la loro carriera artistica
come duo. La loro arte ha come scopo quello di portare all’interno del museo opere inedite e
inaspettate utilizzando un medium altrettanto inconsueto: la carta da parati. Questa viene
personalizzata mediante la creazione di un pattern originale i cui elementi caratteristici
vengono di volta in volta desunti dalla realtà locale. La frutta è un vero e proprio leitmotiv
delle loro opere, sia per il significato storico ed iconografico universale che questa categoria
riveste, sia come metafora di un’identità condivisa. Una parte importante della loro ricerca
artistica, infatti, è connessa a un’idea di condivisione dello spazio e della conoscenza, che
ha portato gli artisti a proteste e alla proposta di utopici spazi condivisi. Nell’ambito della
mostra “Crazy. La follia nell’arte contemporanea” hanno invaso lo spazio relativo alla sala
delle Sibille invitando lo spettatore a entrare e a diventare protagonista di un mondo interiore
variopinto, divertente e folle.

LA MOSTRA

Dart – Chiostro del Bramante
presenta
CRAZY
La follia nell’ arte contemporanea
19.02.2022 – 08.01.2023
a Roma un grande progetto creativo ed espositivo a cura di Danilo Eccher

21 artisti di rilievo internazionale, più di 11 installazioni site-specific inedite: per la prima volta le opere d’arte invaderanno gli spazi esterni e interni del Chiostro del Bramante di Roma, perché la follia non può avere limiti.

La percezione del mondo è il primo segnale di instabilità, il primo contatto fra realtà esterna e cervello, fra verità fisica e creatività poetica, fra leggi ottiche e disturbi neurologici.

I 21 artisti chiamati a partecipare sono parte di questa follia.

Carlos Amorales, Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter, Massimo Bartolini, Gianni Colombo, Petah Coyne, Ian Davenport, Janet Echelman, Fallen Fruit / David Allen Burns e Austin Young, Lucio Fontana, Anne Hardy, Thomas Hirschhorn, Alfredo Jaar, Alfredo Pirri, Gianni Politi, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala, Yinka Shonibare, Sissi, Max Streicher, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu.

The sale includes a fruit tree planted in public space in honor of the buyer and mapped on the endlessorchard. It also includes a large print of the artwork IRL.

‘Public Gathering at the Monument to Sharing’ David Allen Burns and Austin Young, Fallen Fruit, 2022

“Public Gathering at the Monument to Sharing” is a digital collage made with voices recorded from our Rainbow Fruit Jam project where we ask people ‘What is Utopia?’ and also images of recontextualized anthropomorphic fruit characters originally created by the public for “Fallen Fruit Magazine” – mainly from their participatory project at the V&A Museum in London, and also various cities around the world.

The characters are gathered around the “Monument to Sharing,” the artist’s permanent installation artwork in Los Angeles’ State Historic Park. It is an installation of 32 orange trees meant to be shared with everyone. This image was created in 2021 to celebrate the launch of the Endless Orchard – Fallen Fruit’s collaborative non-contiguous public sharing orchard. Join them in creating the largest edible artwork in the world.

The NFT is available at opeansea and CultureVault.com

Voice recording by Fallen Fruit from their public participatory project, Rainbow Jam, commissioned by University of California, Irvine, USA, 2016. Music by Andrew Stanley (of Yolanda Be Cool).

 We planted a bunch of new fruit trees in March, 2022 in Old Town Victorville. Fallen Fruit with support from Old Town Victorville and San Bernardino Arts, #cityofvv!

Check out this video that documents the tree planting and highlights the importance of fruit trees to our community.

Fallen Fruit is featured on “Hope Builders,” highlighting organizations doing good in San Bernardino, for the KVCR PBS station.  This episode is directed by Maria Burton.  Hope Builder  (all 6 pieces with an intro by Christine Lahti) aired in January, 2020.  Features our public fruit park we created with SB Arts Connection  during our project “Fallen Fruit of San Bernardino.