Bridget Fairbank | B Practical Pottery

The Pineapple Project

An Installation

A counter-cum-workbench, tools and utensils act as both still life and kitchen in this installation. The smell of freshly cut pineapple seduces a viewer to slice, dice and pick to engage.

When is the last time you considered a pineapple? When is the last time you purchased a pineapple? Was it pre-skinned and diced? Prickly pineapples are slow laborious to cultivate. Each must be picked by hand, it is a cumbersome fruit. A worker wears full body armour when harvesting due to the knife-like spikes protruding from the tops of the fruit. A once-coveted Florida crop in the early 1900’s, the Dole company squashed the Florida-based industry by establishing its present day sites in Hawaii. The tropical fruit was a delicacy and the symbol for hospitality. At the end of a social gathering the host would ceremoniously cut the top off of the fruit, a sign that the party had ended. Still today, you can simply plant the top of a pineapple and cultivate your own.

Abundance is key to this installation. The viewer is free to take, to participate.

The barrier that the gallery institution has long built between viewer and artwork is an obstacle here, we are not to touch. This is perhaps even a moral conundrum. There is no one to supervise this work, no sign inviting a person to eat. Children are the first to break through the barrier and stake claim to a slice of the sweet fruit, their sticky hands weaponized for any other touching. The gallery is key here for it also denotes respect and reverence. preparing the mind to be challenged in a contemporary space.

The feeling of domestic duty lingers in this work. The question stares you down: Who prepares pineapple? How do you prepare pineapple? Pineapple is one of the few fruits that comes with a how-to illustration on the tag, wrapped around its spiky neck. A pineapple is a dangerous fruit. The scenario presented harks back to a more intimate investment in food. When the high risk/high reward factor was part our calories. Now there is little emotional or bodily investment in modern food consumption. When was the last time you cut a pineapple?