FRUIT
Free Soil: Amy Franceschini, Myriel Milicevic, and Nis Rømer with international collaborators
FRUIT is a project that explores and intervenes in the path of oranges from the orange groves to the consumer. It consists in FRUIT wrappers placed on the oranges, a website, and a travelling installation.
Creative Contribution
What was the significant innovation in approach or thinking behind the project/artwork? How can this be recognisably attributed to the involvement of creative practice?
FRUIT aims to enlighten consumers about the origin and transportation of the products that they purchase in supermarkets.
The wrappers were distributed throughout the food chain by piggybacking on oranges. They hold information on various topics concerning food movement, transport and urban farming.
The website also acts as a resource for further empowering consumers via the provision of information, such as a map illustrating the journey of the product from the farm to the market and highlighting the stories of the farmers who interact with it along its journey.
Collaboration
What were the disciplinary contributors to the project? What model of research / development was followed? What were factors leading to success / problems?
The project was conceived and produced by Free Soil: Amy Franceschini, Myriel Milicevic, and Nis Rømer. Participation extended to a network of consumers and collaborators internationally.
Free Soil is an international collaboration of artists, activists, researchers and gardeners who take a participatory role in the transformation of the environment. Members have developed art projects about greening cities (The Hot Summer of Urban Farming, Copenhagen); the pollution of the Baltic Sea and resulting 'Red Tides' of toxic algae (Selective Memory, Starlsund).
Free-soil participants have individual interests spanning across public art, environmentalism and design.
Free Soil collaborated on the website with Boutique Vizique and Andrew Benson who created the physical interface prototyping and Juan Ospina who created the flash programming. A cohort of artists and farmers were involved with the research and production around the movement of the organs and the wrappers.
Values
What were the outcomes of the project? How were these disseminated to outside stakeholders? What models of value are implied by this project? What was the Impact of the work?
A website that is a platform for distribution for information on local producers, initiatives and provides information on the transportation of goods across the globe.
The website remains the main porthole for the project although it has also been exhibited at six different exhibition venues across the US and once in Germany. The orange wrappers function as a platform for feral distribution.
The project values empowering the consumer by placing information in their hands at ground level and by instigating local and individual actions to address environmental sustainability.
The project uses existing transportation networks to suggest positive alternatives to wasteful consumption. The wrappers suggest local alternatives and tips for urban farming, putting the information in the hands of the consumer.
Links and Resources
http://www.free-soil.org/
http://www.free-soil.org/fruit/protest.php
