Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!

The Hammer Museum received a $100,000 grant from LA2050 to fund ReSTORE LA, a program to bring unique artists and artisans to fill vacant storefronts in Westwood Village in November 2013. The program featured 24 pop-up stores selling world class handmade art and was very successful. Two of the pop-up stores extended their stays in the Village, and one of these stores is Fallen Fruit: Fruiteque! 

Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!, 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. They began their collaboration by mapping public fruit trees growing around Los Angeles. Their work sparked many other ventures, including the public art that brought them to ReSTORE LA by using fruit as the material, subject or medium. The Fruitique is a mix between an art gallery and a workshop that brings people of all ages together to create art. 

Fallen Fruit sees fruit as a common denominator to change the way you see the world. Their projects are group-oriented and are often inspired by a guest artist or a passerby who sets the tone and direction of the project, which guarantees that no two works of art are the same. Each person, not only creates art but also creates a neighborhood that coexists together. "A lot about what we do and what we want was to get people out of their cars. LA is very car-centric. When creating the fruit maps, we wanted to have people get out of their cars and interacting with nature. Being in Southern California we are fortunate enough to have fruit growing trees year round, many of which are on public property,” said Austin Young. Public Fruit Jams invites a broad public audience to transform homegrown or public fruit and then join in communal jam-making as experimentation in personal narrative and sublime collaboration.

What's next? Fallen Fruit’s Fruitique!: GARDEN OF EDEN, will be opening their 2nd program installation at the Kinross location, launching on Wednesday, April 16th, 2014. This store will be loosely themed with animals and fruit and there will be a reception for the artists on Sunday, April 27th from noon to 4pm.

For the newest project, Fallen Fruit is working with local communities to transform the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Los Angeles into a walk-able network of Urban Fruit Trails with over 150 fruit trees planted in the MacArthur Park neighborhood. Stay tuned for information on this project.

How can you get involved? Check out their website: www.fallenfruit.org, and join their newsletter to get updates on upcoming Public Fruit Jams, or visit in person. Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!, open every weekend.