PEACE WATERMELON
Episode: How to Sculpt the Heart of a Watermelon (12’)
2024 performance by Juliana Herrero
Presented at Kunstraum Flat 1 in the context of Towards Blue Planet
PEACE WATERMELON is a poetic and political gesture unfolding within Towards Blue Planet, a screening initiated by Juliana Herrero that bridged artistic voices from Argentina, Peru, and Vienna in response to the climate crisis. In this live act, Herrero turns to the watermelon — its vibrant, water-rich flesh and black seeds — as a symbol of resistance, nourishment, and ancestral memory.
Sculpting and splitting the fruit, she inscribed ephemeral gestures onto fine art paper layered on the floor, forming a visceral landscape of care, rupture, and renewal. Handwritten notes, supported by an atria, reflected on the watermelon’s cultural, botanical, and political resonance.
Accompanied by the quiet soundscape of slicing, cracking, and breath, Herrero also sang a haunting fragment of “Over the Rainbow” — a song born in the shadow of war, echoing longing for peace and color.
PEACE WATERMELON becomes a quiet offering: a meditation on fragility, justice, and repair in a world increasingly shaped by ecological grief and urgency.
Camara in hand: Jina Teranko
& Fix Camera
