Episode 7 - Fruit Love Letters
The Improbable Path of the Avocado Pit
In this episode of Fruit Love Letters Jessamine Starr chats with:
Tom Siddons, owner of Sleepy Lizard Avocado Farm in south Florida
Maria-Elena Pombo, Venezuelan artist with a focus on avocado pits as a material source
Episode Highlights
Avocados
Like apples, avocados are heterozygous in nature, and Tom Siddons discusses the particular way in which avocado trees pollinate
Learn about the history of the most widely eaten avocado, the Hass, as Tom explains how this variety came to exist.
Wondering if people still grow avocado trees from seeds? Luckily there are seedling hunters who experiment with growing from seeds to discover new avocado varieties
Avocado Seeds and Diaspora Art
Before her professional relationship with avocados, Maria shares her memories of the ever present avocado while growing up in Venezuela.
Maria discusses her exploration of using the avocado seed as a dyeing method for fabrics and how her avocado workshops in different countries created a bridge for her family and friends.
Learn about Maria’s project La Reentrada, and her efforts to re-contextualize avocado and art
Maria reflects on how her work with avocados can be an opportunity for the Venezulan diaspora to reconnect with the country in different way
Guests
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Tom Siddons
Tom Siddons is the owner of Sleepy Lizard Avocado Farm in south Florida
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Maria-Elena Pombo
Since 2016 María-Elena Pombo has worked under the moniker Fragmentario experimenting with materials and processes as a way to explore, and share, ideas of time and culture, inspired by her own search for re-definitions of home, as part of the Venezuelan diaspora.
She is best known for her inter-disciplinary work using avocado seeds, gathered through local restaurants. Spanning conceptual fashion, material design, video, installation, performance, participatory art, and speculative design propositions that reimagine avocado seeds as a material to make bricks, plastics, leathers, glass, electricity, and fuel.
Pombo’s research-based work relies on vernacular processes and ubiquitous materials such as avocado seeds themselves, but also others like water provided by participants around the world, seaweed, oyster shells, deadstock silk, and found objects.
She won the 2021 London Design Biennale’s Theme Award. Her work has been exhibited at Somerset House (London, UK), A/D/O (Brooklyn, USA), SXSW (Austin, USA), Mana Contemporary (Jersey City, USA), Yamamoto Seika (Osaka, Japan), La Guarimba Film Festival (Amantea, Italy), among others across the USA, Europe and Japan. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Financial Times and included in the book "True Colors: World Masters of Natural Dyes and Pigments." She is faculty at Parsons School of Design.
She studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design in New York, where she is based, and industrial engineering at Universidad Simón Bolívar in her native Caracas (Venezuela).