I saw apples with drawings on their skin the other day at the gorcer’s*. Reminded me of this project:

In 1996, Laura Stein examined the line between cultural imposition and natural development.

For her Animal-Vegetable photographies, animal-shaped polyurethane molds were secured over baby vegetables to shape the vegetables’ formal attributes. While growing, the vegetables exerted their physical strength and even “attempt” to push through the limits of the molds. Some are too strong to be contained, but most conform to the imposed shape.

There is an intense will to grow, regardless of whether they submit to or resist their formal fates. Unlike their genetically altered counterparts, individual will has an effect on their development. I view my molds as a culturally generated pressure, an applied norm, which then gets filtered into individually aestheticized interpretations.

See Genetics and culture.
Related: Jewels for vegetable lovers.

* i think it was at Alexander Platz station last month.