Promiscuous Production: Breeding is Bittersweet
A National Bitter Melon Council Public Sculpture and Interactive Outdoor Installation, June – November 2010
Group Exhibition: EAT LACMA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The piece closed with a seed-saving performance event during the day-long, group performance festival, Let Them EAT LACMA, where the NBMC and members of the public harvested Bitter Melons and sweet melons from the trellis, removed the seeds, and dried them for further cultivation. Due to the promiscuous pollen-sharing throughout the season, each seed bears the genetic strain of the other. These seeds will be cultivated in future bittersweet melon gardens where the cycle of breeding will continue until a single, true, NBMC Bittersweet Melon seed strain exists.
Through this breeding experiment, the project utilized the Fluxus performance principle of chance production through the practice of cross-pollination. Breeding two “opposing” melons together enabled the exploration of the flexibility and future of bitterness.