In this work, Diana Mulan Zhu invited viewers into an erotic performance and site specific installation of her single channel film Taste the Fruit, Bless the Whore. The film is a queer sex positive retelling of the mythological trope where women are punished for transgressive gluttony of eating forbidden fruit. Persephone, Chang’e, Eve and many others in both Western and Eastern myths have been cursed for overindulgence and sensual excess.

Viewers are guided to sit with her on the same bed sheets on location in the arboretum where her short film was shot. She invites them into her space as they feel comfortable, based on consent, trust and care whether it is into her arms, or sitting side by side comfortably. She asks them for dietary restrictions or preferences and thenfeeds them while they listened with noise cancelling headphones, creating a feedback loop of erotic labor, pleasure, touch, and sound.

She watches them watch herself orgiastically gorge herself on the fruit. Onscreen, she goes unpunished. The viewers also leave sated. They rewrite the narrative into a queer futurity of sensual exchange, mutuality and renewal.

The artist performed this at A Dawn and Two Dusks, the performance festival on May 30th-May 31st 2025 hosted at University of Santa Cruz Arboretum.