Lemon Everlasting Backyard Battery was created for the exhibition This Show Needs You at the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art in the spring of 2008. For this project, we collaborated with Joe McHenry, our friend and local food enthusiast and drew upon the participation of San Jose residents. This project was a continuation of our investigation of the social economy of backyard fruit trees. It also provided an opportunity for us to continue to experiment with how an exhibition space can hold, or frame, social relations and local issues, while actively involving surrounding communities.
Lemon Everlasting Backyard Battery was a bio-active installation that literally transformed itself while on view in the gallery. Inspired by the confluence of San Jose's early agricultural history and the enduring popularity of the lemon tree as an emblematic California lawn "accessory", we collected over a half ton of yard-grown lemons from the cities residents, who were informed of the project through radio and newspaper spots, as well as online postings and email lists.
Lemon Everlasting Backyard Battery was a bio-active installation that literally transformed itself while on view in the gallery. Inspired by the confluence of San Jose's early agricultural history and the enduring popularity of the lemon tree as an emblematic California lawn "accessory", we collected over a half ton of yard-grown lemons from the cities residents, who were informed of the project through radio and newspaper spots, as well as online postings and email lists.
Over the course of three days, we preserved every lemon that was brought to the gallery with salt, following a traditional North African pickling process. The salted lemons were installed in the gallery and cured over the 6 week run of the exhibition. Rows of the yellow jarred fruits were displayed, alongside local stories and portraits of citizen's yards and trees, turning the gallery into a charged space of stored energy and culinary potential. When the the exhibition closed, they were ready to be eaten, and were distributed to gallery visitors and the residents who donated them to project.
At several points during the exhibition, we organized public gatherings, including a workshop for preserving lemons and a tasting festival on the night of May 2nd, right before the show closed. May 2 was declared “San Jose Lemon Day” by the City Council in recognition of the project and exhibition. The district's Council representative, Sam Liccardo, installed a commemorative plaque from the city onto the gallery wall.