Fallen Fruit of Atlanta

Fallen Fruit(David Burns and Austin Young)

Curated by Stuart Horodner

Oct 19, 2013-Dec 14, 2013

Fallen Fruit is the Los Angeles-based collaborative team of David Burns and Austin Young, whose various projects use fruit as a filter to examine distinct places and histories, issues of representation and ownership, and address questions of public versus private space. ACAC commissioned the artists to develop their first exhibition addressing a Southern context and during the past several months they have visited Atlanta three times; Burns and Young engaged the Antioch Baptist Church North, New Horizon Baptist Church, Atlanta History Center, Hammonds House Museum, Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, Souls Grown Deep Foundation, The Wren’s Nest, WonderRoot, Create Your Dreams, and numerous antique stores, farmer’s markets, and private homes. The resulting exhibition operates as a multi-layered installation pulling paintings, maps, and collected “data” from these archives, collections, and experiences in order to provide insights and draw parallels between past and contemporary Atlanta.

Fallen Fruit of Atlanta will include specially-designed and lavish peach wallpaper (playing with themes of abundance), hand-drawn and photographic portraits, and a range of objects chosen to index the diversity and complexity of Atlanta. Like their previous work in cities including Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Salt Lake City, this Fallen Fruit project features a specific fruit, the peach—with its associations of ripeness, optimism, and pleasure—chosen for its ability to reconfigure relationships of sharing and generosity. Issues of legacy and personal narrative animate many of the artists’ encounters in Atlanta—an inquiry into what becomes documented, celebrated, and spoken about, and conversely what is not. A common understanding is that people construct their own histories, through stories and their cherished objects, be they valuable or common. Photography is a constant and ubiquitous element in Fallen Fruit’s artistic practice—utilized both as documentary process and image production—as well as an informal way of establishing trust with a range of citizens, and asking them to lend specific for inclusion in their installations.

In conjunction with the opening of their exhibition the artists have asked Rev. Sean B. Smith, pastor of New Horizon Baptist Church in Atlanta, to speak on connections between fruit and generosity.

Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work.

TED Active

Ted Skillshare Talk
Banana Hotline
Banana Sound Circle

FALLEN FRUIT FACTORY

a public participatory project by Fallen Fruit (David Burns and Austin Young).

The Fallen Fruit Factory is a public participatory art project that allows the public to collaborate with Fallen Fruit and contemporary artists to create fast-art pieces. The Factory is co-hosted by a contemporary artist and Fallen Fruit and creates an immersive art experience where the public can participate in making works of art. In exchange for working on Factory art projects, the public gets Fruit Dollars redeemable for Fallen Fruit or Factory art at the Fruitique! or online at the Fallen Fruit store. Projects are always group-authored, meaning there isn’t one person who creates each individual work. Often the works are inspired both by the guest artist and Fallen Fruit, but it is the stranger or passerby who sets the color, tone, or unique dimensionality of each piece. No two works of art will be the same!

“when life gives you lemons…”

“Lemonade Stand”, a public participatory artwork by Fallen Fruit explores ideas of temporary community and new forms of public. In exchange for a cold glass of organic lemonade, participants are asked to create self-portraits using black ink markers on lemons and to share stories of sadness and disappointment, or happiness and positive self-reflection.

The lemon self-portraits will collectively form a group portrait of everyone who participated, illustrating some of the archetypes that construct community. Additionally, as participants are asked to record stories about neighborhood and family, the Lemonade Stand will activate the phrase… “when life gives you lemons…”

Del Aire Public Fruit Park, public art installation, 2012

Working with residents of the Del Aire neighborhood in Hawthorne, California, this public fruit park attempts to transform the entire community.  While focused on a single “eye” with 12 fruit trees, it is surrounded by 24 other fruit trees scattered throughout the park, and 48 trees adopted by residents and planted on the periphery of private and public property throughout the neighborhood.  Commission from the Los Angeles County Department of Cultural Affairs.

New York Times article “Tasty, and Subversive, Too” by PATRICIA LEIGH BROWNHERE

BANANA HOTLINE

a participatory project by Fallen Fruit / David Allen Burns and Austin Young, commissioned by Ted Active, 2013

Instructions (read Carefully)

Hold the banana.
Close Your eyes.
Center yourself.
As you connect with the banana allow a question,
a childhood memory, personal story, dream,
feeling, wish or request to come to mind.
Take a deep breath and press record.

Banana Hotline will translate our voices
into a living monument of sound.

ps. If you ask the banana a question,
your answer will come by morning.
Be prepared with pen and paper
and share your answers.

send us a link to your sound or video files or mail to [email protected]

Read about our project at TED Active 2013

Public Fruit Tree Adoptions, public participatory project, 2007 – ongoing

Working with a variety of donors or organizations like TreePeople and civic groups, Fallen Fruit distributes free bare-root fruit trees in a variety of urban settings.  We encourage the planting of these trees in either public space or on the periphery of private property, in order to create new kinds of communal life based on generosity and sharing.  Each recipient signs an adoption form promising to care for the tree — initiating a relationship with it.

Fruit Tree Adoptions

Fruit Machine, video, variable configuration, 2009 – ongoing

Fruit Machine is an ongoing project of ours in which we videotape teenagers (age 12 to 17) eating a variety of fruits. From apples to oranges, to bananas and pears. It is a study in how we actually eat fruit, the portraits range from graceful to awkward and comical, as the teenagers navigate what they quickly come to realize is a not-so-simple task. Eating gracefully is not something that comes naturally and in some cases is impossible without the use of plates and utensils. The teenagers have shown a lot of fun and creativity in the photographs, some even thought to bite the peel rather than pick at it!

The presentation of this project of course was heavily inspired by slot machines (like those a trusted slot agent malaysia has to offer would know plenty about) or fruit machines as they’re often called because of their penchant to use fruit symbols. Three matching fruits in a horizontal row means a payout for the lucky player to get them. Slot machines are found everywhere in our lives, from the corner of the local pub to online sites such as mega888, featuring vivid colours and bright lights, which you will find in the composition of our photographs.

The videos are screened in configurations of 3 to 5 in a row in order to resemble a slot machine (whose windows often use fruit as symbols). Each video portrait runs for about 30 seconds then spins to another, in hopes that all the windows will align to the same fruit: the jackpot!

solo exhibition, 2010

Drawing on the museum’s permanent collection, The Fruit of LACMA assembled work in several media (painting, photography, and decorative arts) to examine the haunting persistence of fruit in art. This exhibition examines the symbolic and sociological aspects of fruit in art, from religious symbolism to embedded social messages. Drawing on the museum’s permanent collection, The Fruit of LACMA assembled work in several media (painting, photography, and decorative arts) to examine the haunting persistence of fruit in art. This exhibition examines the symbolic and sociological aspects of fruit in art, from religious symbolism to embedded social messages. It includes a LACMA-commissioned piece from Fallen Fruit, as well as custom-designed wallpaper. The website for EATLACMA was participatory and integrated into the overall project, collecting videos, tweets, artist’s blogs and images. It includes a LACMA-commissioned piece from Fallen Fruit, as well as custom-designed wallpaper.  The website for EATLACMA was participatory and integrated into the overall project, collecting videos, tweets, artist’s blogs and images.