Strange fruit

Abel Meeropol’s *Strange Fruit (1937) is a grim, sinister, and melancholic poem that bears witness to the absurdity of lynching practices targeting people of color in post-colonial America; here, it is sung by Billie Holiday ane Nina Smone. As the poem suggests, lynching victims had to be reduced to the status of a fruit, aninanimate object, condittioned to be hanging from a tree. My reflection on the issues surrounding systemic racism and inter-ethnic power dynamics led me to create a commemorative object for these victims: a head-shaped urn designed to be hung from a tree branch, taken down, or worn on the body. The rope—originally intended as an instrument of hanging—is transformed into a shoulder strap. I view this transformation as an act of symbolic reversal of the harmful act, through which I take it upon myself to bear the weight of transgenerational suffering.