Beeple, Bees Are People, Human Rights For Bees

Northern Light Residency Exhibition, Galleri Blunk, Trondheim, Norway, 2013. Installation, Various Media. Click here for full programme information.

A series of shrine-like birchwood landing platforms, laden with offerings of natural artifacts, beeswax and trinkets. Arranged in a pattern inspired by fungal growth in the woods, interspersed with dried fungal protrusions. Above the doorway are golden replicas of an ancient Mediterranean bee goddess plaque. There are three lightboxes, one of which contains a framed puzzle made of leaves, an abstracted and subtle reference to the interconnectedness of our fragile ecosystems and its dependence on bees for reproduction. Inspired by Bolivia’s step of granting human rights to nature, this work plays with ways of manifesting symbolic respect and reverence for nature by drawing on the framework and aesthetics of shrines and offerings. The video ‘If Eye Wood, Would You’ is projected on the wall to the left.

‘If Eye Wood, Would You’ Northern Light Residency Exhibition, Galleri Blunk, Trondheim, Norway, 2013. Video Projection 3×2 meter. Duration: 3:06 (looped). Shorter edit (1:00”) of this video screened at the EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam on 03-05-2016; Roef Festival, Amsterdam on 09-09-2016; Kunsthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag on 24-09-2016; Reykjavik International Film Festival from 29-09 till 09-10-2016; as part of ‘Ways of Seeing The Future’ at Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts AMNUA, Nanjing, China from 26-10 till 25-11-18; and as part of ‘One Minute is Eternal’, Power Station of Art Museum (PSA), Shanghai, during ‘ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair’, China from 23-10 till 24-11-19, all as part of the collection ‘Communication With The Non-Human’. View it here.

Originally part of the installation ‘Beeple, Bees Are People, Human Rights For Bees’, with its own subtitle of ‘Treeple, Trees Are People, Human Rights For Trees’. Bringing to life the artist Herbert Bayer’s birch/aspen eye collage ‘In Search of Times Past’ (1959). Inspired by Bolivia’s push for granting human rights for nature, I went on an animistic journey into the Norwegian birch forest silently filming and watching and being watched in return. The video poses questions about whether if we had a more animistic attitude and understanding of the natural world, would we relate to it in a more sentient and respectful way.