HOW FALLEN FRUIT IS CHANGING THE ART WORLD & LIFE IN LA

Fallen fruit: It’s a visual, evocative, nearly palpable phrase fecund with groves of meaning and metaphor. A Hollywood talent agent might see a Loveboat of actors ripe beyond their close-ups, sinking on the rocks way past prime time. A fire-and-brimstone finger-wagger would likely envision a spiritual descent steeper and even more perilous. A philosopher would perhaps ponder lost opportunity, whereas a supersize corporate farmer would almost certainly decry laxity while fearing lost profits.

Artists David Burns and Austin Young however, see nothing but positives: Fruit as a delicious, nutritious, at times viscous bounty that symbolizes abundance and generosity, intercommunal exchange, and social collaboration; a nonpolarizing connector that transgresses culture, class, race, nationality, age, and epoch—and which serves as the fruitful media through which they hope to change the topography of the planet and improve the geography of your mind, all while making organic, vitamin-enriched snacks readily available, too. Judging by the success of “Endless Orchard,” the duo’s most ambitious project to date— which this month grows into one of the largest collaborative art projects in the world (and it’s just in its sapling stage!)— they’re well on their way.

What exactly is this incredible fruit cocktail, and what’s its recipe?

First, take a healthy pinch of inspiration…

The collaboration germinated in 2004, when cofounders Burns, Young, and fellow artist and cofounder Matias Viegener (who exited the group in 2013) responded to a call for proposals fromThe Journal of Aesthetics