Seeds of a Grapefruit

A collection of 52 instructional poems with accompanying photographs. Cover image courtesy of the New York Public Library digital collections and edited by the artist. Interior book layout set and designed by the artist. Book printing and binding was commercially outsourced.

Each poem captures a performative act realized over the course of a year in 2018—approximately one performance per week. The poems exaggerate, re-contextualize, and reframe everyday actions and repetitive behaviors into metaphorical written works. While inspired by Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, the works root themselves in reality rather than imagination. The photographs demonstrate that each poem is possible to act on; the images became “answers” to the vague instructional sets and offer readers an opportunity to create their own interpretation of each ruleset.