Bee Good

oil on wood, populus branches, metal                               

2018

Bees master the art of transforming natural materials, even upcycling them. They make beewax, honey out of nectar, propolis, made of collected resin, not only serving as a construction material for the bees themselves but also as a medicine for people. 

Beekeeping has been part of Slovenian culture for ages and the productive and friendly Carniolan honeybee, a species that is originally from Slovenia, is a popular species all over the world. In former days the bees were kept in traditional beehives made of hollow tree trunks, the ‘korita’. The bees in the installation ‘BEE good’ are also made of small tree slices, in remembrance of  these traditional beehives. The ‘waste-wood ‘ is reused and brought to life again.

Bees and other pollinating insects play an essential role in ecosystems. A third of all our food depends on their pollination. A world without pollinators would be devastating for food production. Unfortunately we see unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies due to pollution, use of pesticides and urbanisation.

‘Bee Good’ is an ode to the bee, whom we can learn from to work together and ‘upcycle’.

‘Bee Good’ was presented on the Circular Change Conference 2018 and on the 20th of may, World Bee Day, in the sculpturepark of Art Museum Bozidar Jakac in Kostanjevica na Krki, Slovenia. ‘Bee Good’ eventually stayed until the end of summer.

My suggestion to mow around the installation was followed by the gardeners of the museum. When we deinstalled ‘Bee Good’ we left a circle of flowers and real bees feeding on them…