论斤论个 per kilo, per fruit

Nets for shading 20%; Donghong variety red MihouTao; vine from last season; buckets; carpet; compressed carton cube; labels; plastic ropes; poly reisen; clay; A0 paper (collaboration with Rory Witt), HD Video loop (collaboration with Yve Oh), sound, 6 minutes

Dimensions variable

2022-23

The work looks into the origin of the Kiwi fruit, its political history, biological transformation, and cultural perception. In 1904, Mihoutao (猕猴桃, the Chinese gooseberry) was brought to New Zealand, where it was profitably cultivated and eventually renamed. Today, the products are sold back to China under strict industrial standards. The reimported fruit is given a different Chinese name, 奇异果, transliteration of Kiwi and literally meaning Strange fruit.

Spanning two spaces, the fruit’s life cycle gets re-enacted: planting, harvesting, selecting, packaging, transporting, marketing, and re-naming. The whole journey under the industrial conditions writes the fruit’s prevailing name over the original one. To claim its original name, the fruit has to develop a red variation to justify its market presence.