Date
Sep – Oct 2017
Location
London
Venue
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning (exhibition)
Food Research Collaboration at City University of London
(panel discussion)
Project website
aisforappleproject.com
Residency artists
Gen Doy
Jamie Harper
Lucy Steggals
Exhibition artists
Alle Dowska
Gen Doy
Jamie Harper
John Hinton
Lily Hunter Green
Jane Lawson
Derek Man
Camilla Nelson
Lucy Steggals
Hanna and Hugo Rohtla
Special thanks
National Fruit Collection
Trumpington Community Orchard
Lathcoats Farm
Press mentions
BBC Pictures | When is an apple not an apple?
It’s Nice That | Best of the web
A is for Apple project traces the history and cultivation of the apple to help map the ever-changing world. Apples have influenced our understanding of gravity, became significant symbols in our religions and myths and contributed in many ways to other fields of knowledge. Our long relationship with the apple can help us understand how closely humans and nature have worked together. Through looking back at the stories of apple migration, production, perpetuation and conservation of the apple tree, the project explores the central drivers and systems set up in our society.
The project consists of three stages in conversation with each other. The first is three artist residencies across apple farming locations in the UK for artists to initiate the discovery of different farming systems and the personal stories within them. The second is a panel discussion co-organised with Food Research Collaboration at City University London that considers the importance of art within food research. A is for Apple culminates with an exhibition named CULTIVATE: 7500 Stories at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning in London. All of the artworks bring to light our fantastical, historical, economic, biological, geographical and spiritual relationship with the apple.
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Wild Fruits: Thoreau’s Rediscovered Last Manuscript
