Whether it be temptation and the subsequent eviction from Paradise; nostalgic childhood cuisine; romantic heat, amorous lust, and decaying heartbreak; or allegories for health and wealth, fruits have always been stores of soft and hard power. They continue to inspire writers, poets, and visual artists to tell us the sweetest and bitterest truths.
In Amargos Como Os Frutos (Bitter Like Fruits) the Angolan poet Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares speaks to her at-war country, the representation of women in the ovaKwanyama culture as “poetic objects” instead of “poetic subjects” is challenged. Translated from a traditional Kwanyama lyric, the poetry collection’s symbolisms and interactions with the femine travelled across time from southern Angola, across the Atlantic Ocean, to Brazil where it inspired the construction of a series of images in which five women chose and interacted with a fruit with which they shared a special connection or intimate memory.
Daisy Serena is a Brazilian visual artist, poet, and activist living and working in São Paulo. She studied sociology and politics at Fundação Escola de Sociologia e Política de São Paulo. Tautologias, her debut poetry collection, was published by Padê Editorial in 2016.