by NATHAN HAZARD

“I always see people picking from this tree but never knew what it was,” says Silver Lake resident Mary Rasmussen as she reaches for a kumquat from the golden-leaved tree across the street from her home. This was our first urban harvest, and while we’d expected an artfully drawn map of the neighborhood printed from the Internet to lead the way, what we didn’t expect was how much we’d find on Mary’s block alone.

The first project by Los Angeles art/activist collective Fallen Fruit, the guide in our hands mapped “public fruit”-bearing trees between the Silver Lake homes of members Matias Viegener, David Burns and Austin Young. By California law, “public fruit” refers to any fruit from trees growing in—or merely hanging over—public spaces. While the picking of this fruit may feel a bit taboo, Fallen Fruit views it as a virtually untapped and invaluable community resource.

Conceived five years ago in response to a call for submissions from the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, Fallen Fruit “in a way had a solution before a problem,” says Viegener. The ethical code of public fruit picking branded their outlook: Take only what you need, say “hi” to strangers, share your food, take a friend and go by foot. After publishing several more fruit maps of other Los Angeles neighborhoods (all printable via the group’s website), Fallen Fruit found that its focus became more social, its energy most devoted to organizing nocturnal fruit forages, communal public fruit jam-making events, fruit park proposals, guerilla fruit tree plantings and nonstop conceptual “propaganda.”

“It was always about the fruit,” Viegener says, adding that “it’s more about the connections among people through the vehicle of fruit,” in the end.

Regarding the future of these popular neighborhood fruit maps, Fallen Fruit promotes a DIY approach: Start by looking around you. “Our goal is not just to show where the fruit is; our goal is to get people to explore their neighborhoods.”

Fallen Fruit
fallenfruit.org

NATHAN HAZARD lives and eats in Los Angeles. He writes about tasty things in his blog The Chocolate of Meats. (chocomeat.com)