Persephone lives alone in her family’s ancestral fruit orchard warehouse where invasive pants have taken over; Blackberry vines and English Ivy are growing through her windows.
Ever resourceful and stylish she has fashioned her clothing out of Pomegranate peels, fruit leather and dates.
Persephone adapts to her isolation and angst by building terrariums with figurines of herself recounting the days of abundance in the orchard.
She navigates both her protected inner world and the dangerous outdoor environment with ingenuity and grace. Makeup artist: Keith Murray
The storyline abstractly refers to the goddess Persephone, whose role is to inaugurate spring after the fallow season. In the original Greek myth she is abducted by Hades and remains his victim in the underworld because she has eaten the forbidden pomegranate fruit.
In my re-interpretation of the story Persephone eats the pomegranate for its healing properties, which helps her survive and adapt to her unfamiliar world.
Harvesting memory. Terrarium detail.
Without constant trimming and chemical suppression, Blackberry vines invade outdoor and indoor spaces. Tom Robbins’ Still Life with Woodpecker meets Margret Atwood’s MaddAdam Trilogy.
Back detail of pomegranate jacket with a spine design made from dried mushrooms held together with thorns. Armbands made from bark.
Demeter, Persephone’s mother roams the earth in the guise of a mortal, forbidding the trees to bear fruit and the earth to nurture vegetables and herbs.
Persephone copes with her forced isolation by creating an imaginary world in preparation for the eventual visit of others of her species.
Undeterred by the collapse of the fast fashion industry she fabricates her boots out of pomegranate fruit leather on a cork platform heel.
Branches spring up and through the fabric of her makeshift home.
The ancient Persephone myth begins with her gathering flowers in a field where she is literally and figuratively deflowered—leaving the plain scattered with blossoms of every color.