Gregor Božič

Installation

Images de fruits rêvées par de vieux paysans en hiver is a photography installation centered on the idea of fruits as objects of desire. It contemplates on the fascination and devotion that fruits inspired in people throughout history, especially before they became a part of mass-produced global trade. Devoid of their original shapes and aromas as well as of stories that made them locally distinct, the supermarket fruits of today are pretty much alike all around the world - standardized shells of promise, figurative representation of the market economy.

Filmmaker and researcher of autochthonous fruit varieties Gregor Božič sets on a quest to discover places in Europe, where locally grown fruits still hold a significant communal and cultural role. He starts his journey in winter: he observes the resting but resilient fruit trees and converses with old farmers, who spend this time imagining the fruits that will grow on trees in a few months. He discovers abandoned orchards overgrown with weeds and bushes, phantomlike monuments enduring the passage of time in the midst of industrialized fields, resembling 17th century landscape paintings or drawings from children’s books. A phantom Pan-European jungle.

Gregor Božič

Gregor Božič was born in Nova Gorica, during the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Filmmaker, cinematographer and researcher of Mediterranean pomology, his directorial debut Stories from the Chestnut Woods premiered at the Toronto international film festival TIFF in 2019. The film received numerous awards and was screened at more than fifty international film festivals subsequently. As a cinematographer he worked on films that have been shown and awarded at major international film festivals including Locarno, Rotterdam, Tribeca and FID Marseille. During the first year of the stay at Le Fresnoy, Gregor created a photographic installation Images de fruits rêvés par de vieux paysans en hiver, which was exhibited as part of the exhibition Panorama 22 – Les sentinelles in 2020.

Production

Credits

Acknowledgments

Giuseppe Barbera, Gaetano La Placa, Cooperativa Petraviva Madonie, Mattilde Riccioli, Cooperativa agricola Zaufanah, Giuseppe lo Pilato, Elisabeth Journolleau, Vergers retrouvés du Comminges, Paul van Laer, Nationale Boomgaardenstichting