Between Nature, Image and Global Circulation

Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees and orchards, embodies fertility, abundance and the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. As a mythological figure, she provides a starting point for reflecting on how fruit has been depicted, produced and traded throughout history.
Fruit plays a significant role in Romantic painting and the tradition of still life. Apples, pears, grapes and citrus fruits appear as symbols of beauty, transience and abundance. These carefully composed images elevate fruit into a pictorial motif in which nature and culture converge.
The transformation of images is a recurring element in the work of Manor Grunewald. Through reproduction, manipulation, displacement and layering, he explores how images are created, altered and circulated. His engagement with existing visual languages and technical image-making processes offers a perspective from which to reinterpret this theme.

Set against the still-life image of fruit is the contemporary reality of the global fruit industry. Fruit travels across continents, being refrigerated, sorted, packaged and distributed through complex logistical networks. The distance between where it grows and where it is consumed continues to increase. In this context, fruit is valued not only for its natural beauty, but above all for its marketability and economic value.

In this context, Pomona emerges as a contemporary allegory: a figure that makes visible the tensions between nature and economics, abundance and transience, local origins and global distribution. Between the painted fruit and the globally traded commodity, a reflection unfolds on our relationship with food and on the often-invisible systems that make the apparent self-evidence of abundance possible.
At Loods 12, these different worlds temporarily converge.