‘The Fruit is There To Be Eaten’, the second instalment of the Dissolution Trilogy is based on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947). The work echoes the style of the source material in that it is set in India but is shot entirely in a film studio in the UK. It replaces painted backdrops with back projection, stock footage and revealed sets to reimagine the relationship between lower-caste dancing girl Kanchi and missionary nun Sister Clodagh. In a schoolroom and in the gardens of a Himalayan convent, Kanchi and Sisters Clodagh and Philippa recognise they are trapped on a film set in 2016. With the colonies a distant memory, the Sisters unravel and this allows Kanchi to introduce her gods in order to challenge an imposed belief system, and in so doing to break down the supposed civility of the colonies into something more carnal and Queer.
