SAY IT WITH Fruits

Special projects with Moment
Photography, Graphic Design, 3D Modeling, AR

This project was made possible by the Moment Creator Grant

The title “Say It With Fruits” is a play on the slogan “Say It With Flowers” which was adopted in the early 1900s. This was a time when the language of flowers gained popularity, becoming a means of complex coded communication. Using particular blooms for ‘I love you’ or floral scents for an unreciprocated refusal, Victorians were able to send messages to each other when strictures at the time made it impossible to do so openly.

While each flower is symbolic in its specific message, fruits and the way they’re served in Asian homes is just as, if not more, meaningful. Cleaned, skinned, meticulously cubed, and arranged like jewels on a platter, the love language of Asian homes is cut fruit.

This project started during the spring of 2020, when I came across “Love In The Shape Of Cut Fruit” by Connie Wang and Yi Jun Loh’s “A Bowl of Cut Fruits Is How Asian Moms Say: I Love You.” Each writing of the tropes and traditions of cut fruit that I very much relate to and missed while separated from family. Remembering study break snacks and after-dinner treats, the silent I-love-you’s or a delicious bite-sized-stabbed-with-a-toothpick truce. My mom served orange wedges for dessert, dragon fruit peeled and cubed, guavas with its seeds scooped out of the core, apples and pears skinned and sliced. While I’m not as eloquent with story-telling (I recommend you read the two pieces above), I knew I had to capture the labour of love that is cutting fruit every night over the sink.