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Mishappen fruits

Texte: Chrystal Cherniwchan
Image crédit: Chrystal Cherniwchan
Canadian artist Chrystal Cherniwchan’s main source of inspiration is misshapen fruits.
She tells us about her artistic work with Niels citrus, here is her testimony: “I have been working on this ‘citrus’ project for close to a year now. Largely it started after watching a lecture published on YouTube by Yale University Art Gallery titled The Lemon’s Lure by Mariet Westermann. She mentioned David Freedberg’s work on citrus, and I received a copy of his book Citrus Fruit as a gift, and it is filled with historical images from the 1600s of hybrids, citrus with fingers, bumps, and often referred to as mishappen fruits.
I find these uncommonly seen fruits fascinating. When I contacted him through Instagram, he replied that he had so many wonderful hybrid fruits and specimens that I had only seen in books.
The Mishappenings project is about how we perceive failure. Every day small failings reflect ‘mishappenings’: of communication and dialogue, of what happens between humans and their natures, including machines. I can identify and empathize with these mishappenings. The project seeks to document a few of my interactions with the so-called ‘flawed’ as a way of preserving intimate, shared experiences, and of trying to understand the feeling of the ununderstandable.”