Heather Wright/The Independent

“Why would somebody give 6.2 million for a banana on the wall?”

That’s what Forest’s Jose Van Haastert thought after seeing what a crypto billionaire paid for a piece of conceptual art with a banana on the wall. Her family talked about the massive price tag for the art over Christmas. But the idea got Van Haastert, a member of the Forest Kiwanis Club, thinking about a fundraiser for the much needed projection equipment at the Kineto Theatre. It has a price tag of about $80,000.

The club has just raised $1.5 million to update the theatre and club members didn’t seem to be interested in a big campaign. Van Haastert thought a tongue-in-cheek conceptual art series might be just the ticket.

“If we do something really silly, then it’s a fundraising, but it’s also fun.”

So, Van Haastert raised the issue at a Kiwanis meeting. “I said, ‘Hey guys, we can get $6.2 million every if we tape something on the wall, but we don’t do the banana, we do an apple on a rope. And that’s how it all started.”

Kiwanis agreed and Van Haastert created a sequence of three objects to be part of the fundraiser, just as the banana on the wall did.

“I added a what was the Mandarin and on the other side, accompanied by a cucumber.” She also added an artist statement, similar to the $6.2 million banana on the wall. “It came as a very silly write up. It just didn’t make any sense. But that was part of that art, because it’s called conceptual art. It’s not about the art, it is about the idea,” she said.

The orange, the statement says, “reflects the continuous, eternal and persistent relationship between the Kineto Theatre and its astonishing community.”

The “strength, beauty and shape of the rope” is around the apple which “represents the power of community.”

And cucumber taped to the wall depicts “the vulnerability, perishability, beauty and fifty shades of green, bring the emotions of peace, common sense and love into the cosmos.”

The Silly Sequence is on display at the Kineto Theatre for people to bid on the art.

“If you sign up for the silent auction, you get the bronze apple, (donated by artist Morris Wazney) you get the real art, the mandarin, the apple, and the other produce. But we also made a canvas with all three on them, so you have something to hang on your wall eventually,” says Van Haastert.

The club is also making the fundraiser “accessible to the public” by creating bookmarks and post cards which people can purchase for $5 each “where people who like reading, they see the bookmark, they think about Kineto every day.”

Bids can be made in person or by emailing [email protected].