National Bitter Melon Council

New Markets: Building a Consumer Constituency for Bitter Melon

Artscape
July 17-19th, 2009

The National Bitter Melon Council participated in Baltimore's annual public art festival: Artscape. Located outside a parking garage that had been converted into a combination installation space and free store, we set up a table with hundreds of green balloons, bearing the phrase: "I'm not bitter, my Melon is." We invited people to take a balloon and walk around the city, tying it to a place that made them feel bitter. In exchange, they left the address for us, and the bitter sentiment, on a tag that we pinned to a large map of the city of Baltimore - our record of these bitter spaces. We invited passers by - balloon takers and others - to refer to the map and use these bitter sites to create their own walking tour of the city.

Participants identified everything from an ex-spouse's house, a gentrified neighborhood whose rental prices were now too high, an area of the highway with too much traffic, a place to buy Bitter Melon, and more. The project ended with the Bitter Melon balloons scattered throughout the city - tied, flying, and then slowly falling to the ground as the helium, and bitterness, slowly seeped out.

Curators: Services United (Jill Fannon, Marian April Glebes, Jaimes Mayhew, Kathryn Williamson and Shannon Young)

Credit: Artscape: Baltimore City Public Art Festival