IMPOSSIBLE CITRUS
with Lorelei D’Andriole

As we approach year two of the COVID-19 pandemic, artist duo Holo (Kelly Clare and Lorelei d’Andriole) ask: when will we stop being given lemons with which to make lemonade? How fruitful is a positive attitude when one is powerless over their material conditions? Through participatory lemon smashing, citrus instruments, lemon etching, and invisible ink, Impossible Citrus uses humor and vibrancy to push back against the numbed state.  The hand on the screen reaches out to projected digital lemons, but this hand will never be able to grab a fruit and produce juice. In the digital remove, a conditional-tense lemon only goes so far. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. What if the lemons are invisible, inaccessible, and unreachable?

Impossible musical objects, the juice from the lemons inherently corrode the wires and technology—a bitter and acidic mess. But a lemon, a mistake, can still make sound. In a post-lemonade world, maybe we should instead look to the lemon tree who, while able to self pollinate, produces better tasting fruit when in a community.

1. Visitors were encouraged to smash lemons with hammers on top of an aluminum matrix 
2. Visitors were encouraged to fill out “WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU _____, MAKE ____” using lemon ink
3. Lemon nets were assembled for citrus storage (Kelly)
4. Lemon guitars were assemled for a performance (Lorelei)
5. The damaged aluminum matrixes were printed in the gallery with black ink
6. There was a lemon performace. Lorelei played lemon guitars. Kelly used a heat gun to reveal the lemon ink messages

Documentation:

ROTARY EXPRESS with
KATHERINE GIBBEL and
DORIAN DEAN

Summer 2022, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA
created between Windsor VT, Iowa City IA, and Easthampton MA

to get something somewhere 

active space, temporary space

CREAKILY with
Will Yager