For PSU Open Studios, I worked closely with my neighbor Linda Rossi, Portland-based performance artist urks io, and English professor Katie Gemmil, as well as members of the art school community to explore layers surrounding the Eden narrative associated the bulbous fig fruit. The question I was exploring was: “How can engaging a sense of play lead to new associations for this community with the fig, and how can these associations replace narratives of shame, neglect, and dissocation associated with sex?” I found most all of the elements of the installation within a few block radius of the house where I was living in Northeast Portland. This included a classroom filled with dried fig leaves, which permeated the hallways with the sweet smell of figs, and also provided a unique experience to stomp, crunch, and play in leaves within a city where the ground is usually wet. The installation also featured hanging plaster figs that I poured from a single original fig from the same tree that shed the leaves in the classroom. Additional elements invited sensory and playful participation for visitors, including large mirrors found in the house next door to the fig tree, edible fig syrup made from figs on the same tree, and a collection of vintage purple choral robes that match the color of ripe fig skins. During the installation, a series of performance scores that I wrote with urks io invited the participants to create a sculpture out of the materials in the room, taste the fig, and walk around the room robed in unison, among other explorations. Upon entering the space, one visitor proclaimed, without reading any context, that it appeared we were stomping on shame in the Garden of Eden.

Gilian Rappaport with contributions from Linda Rossi, urks io, and Katie Gemmill

Participants: John Niekrasz, Patricia Vazquez-Gomes, Carly Thomasset, Cory Knoblauch, Gina Roberti, Ari Ettinger, Jess Siegel, Ashley Yang-Thompson, Shelbie Loomis, Harvee Bird, Jennice Rodriquez, Hazel Andersen

Photos by Harvee Bird, Gilian Rappaport

Videos by Shelbie Loomis

Special thanks to Corey Knoblach, Stanley Carpenter, Hannah Rosenfeld, Rachel Traub, Erik Greshke, Alison Heryear, Adrian Ruth Williams

Related publication: The Original Fig