Sherry Wiggins with Luís Branco

Forbidden Fruit

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The story of the original temptation and the forbidden fruit baffles me. Why wouldn’t Eve want to know the difference between good and evil which the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge offers? And how did this idea of Eve as the original “dangerous woman” get passed down through millennia? 

Eve (me) is depicted in a snakeskin dress under a quince tree in a stage-set-like mise-en-scène. I combine the Serpent and the original Woman in one form—she is both offering and taking the forbidden fruit, both temptress and tempted. In Exit Paradise I, Eve/the Serpent sheds her dress/skin as she exits paradise and is forever blamed for her singular act. Luís Branco and I shot these images of Eve/the Serpent under the quince tree in the courtyard at the OBRAS Artist Residency in Portugal in 2021.