The Oasis of the Juicy Fruits

The Oasis Of The Juicy Fruits

Krafthouse: Forest of the New Trees” Center for Craft | Asheville, NC

9/21-10/14 2023

For "Krafthouse: Forest Of The New Trees”, invited groups of artists were asked to imagine a “post-major event Appalachia”. In response, we built an immersive "Post-Scarcity U-Pick Orchard" within a subterranean geodesic dome.  Through this highly collaborative multimedia experience, The Oasis of the Juicy Fruits gave visitors a glimpse into a future of sweet abundance and care, and paid technicolor homage to our region’s cherished craft and folk traditions of gourd art, Appalachian quilt styles, limberjack puppets, square dancing techniques, shape note singing, basketry, and fruit jam preservation, as well as William Bartram’s 1773 descriptions of pre-contact agricultural sites in the Georgia Piedmont. Woven into the fabric of the Oasis is an imaginative fusion of American psychedelia/ outsider art, agroforestry and futuristic fruit grafting that finds fertile ground at the crossroads of unconventional artistic expression and a yearning for the commons. In this harmony of tradition, innovation, and creative wonder, The Oasis of the Juicy Fruits beckoned all to partake in the dance of life.