The artistic duo known as Fallen Fruit—Austin Young and David Allen Burns—have two pieces on display at the Nevada Museum of Art through September 2030. One, The Power of Pollinators, is a large wallpaper/curtain installation in the first-floor lobby, with printed plants and animals that live in Reno. The other, Monument to Sharing, is an outdoor garden of flowers and fruit trees, from which museum visitors are welcome to pick fruit to take home. Young, who grew up in Reno, returns to his hometown periodically throughout the year to check on the garden and note its progress. He spoke with the RN&R by phone from his home in Los Angeles. Find out more on Fallen Fruit’s website and at www.nevadaart.org/art/exhibitions/fallen-fruit-monument-to-sharing.
What are some of the regular things that you and David do to maintain or add to the Monument to Sharing?
Well, it’s all edible plants and pollinating flowers, so it needs a lot of maintenance, and in that case, we’re working with volunteers from the community. They’re the volunteers who are part of the NMA’s program, and anybody can do that. Anybody can sign up to volunteer and help care for the artwork outside.
How do you feel that the Monument has evolved over time? Have you been able to see it maintained well, thanks to that volunteer spirit?
Yeah, it’s been really incredible, because, first, such care was taken to remediate the soil and with all the plantings. I think there are 24 fruit-bearing trees. There are a lot of interesting plants there. We’re replanting seasonally, but most are going to survive the winters and do really well. We even have some experimental plants like fig and pomegranate, which are kind of on the edge of doing well in Reno, and they’re actually coming along really well.
Second, we thought about: How could you harvest it, and have different things to harvest every month or two? So, as it grows, there’s going to be more fruit to harvest. The blackberries are doing well, and there are a lot of peaches. And then, in another two years, it’s going to be even more productive. With all of the pollinators we planted, we’re also thinking about it not just being for people passing by. It’s for the animals and to help with sustaining other pollinators in the area.
What do you see as the link between using items like fruit and flowers for a garden, but also calling it an art piece?
Well, one of the ways is that this is an artwork about sharing. It’s about how we could use public space to actually grow and strengthen community. And also, in the case of the Monument to Sharing, we are looking at all the problematic ways that monuments have been seen in the last few years, with people asking for them to be taken down. So, this became a way that we could say, “Well, this is our idea of a meaningful monument in a public space—a monument not to somebody, but to all of us and to how we can think about living within a city.” So, it goes beyond just a simple artwork.
What do you ultimately hope that viewers get out of these pieces of work? Would it be perhaps a change in the way someone sees art or participates in it?
For Fallen Fruit, I think the idea really is a call for people to think about others. One of the things that we encourage people to do is to plant a free tree in front of their home next to the sidewalk, and map it on our sharing map, what we call the Endless Orchard. This way, you can take a small action, and you can actually co-create this artwork with us.