Telling the Bees

Outside stands a white porcelain beehive, topped with a large mask through which honeybees fly in and out. Cables lead from the hive to a sensor module that records temperature, humidity, and communication within the colony. Inside, in the back room  of the exhibition space, stands a glass display case containing an artwork by visual artist Hans de Vries. A climate control system translates the fluctuations in the beehive to the display case, allowing the archive to breathe along with the bees.

Telling the Bees demonstrates the tension between two different logics of conservation. Human preservation typically focuses on stasis. Through technological interventions, we attempt to stop time and deny transformation and decay. Bees preserve their wax, honey, and brood through continuous adaptation—a stability that exists only amidst continuous change.

The project transfers curatorship to the bees, which within the work care for the archive of Hans de Vries – the “archivist of the unnoticed inconspicuous”. In 1971, the artist documented his five beehives in meticulous detail for a year. An ecological awareness gradually becomes discernible in his notes as he writes how pesticides from nearby fields poisoned the colonies. The archive now exists under the care of the organisms described within it, creating a reciprocity of care that spans decades.

About the artist

Stef Veldhuis is an artist working at the intersection of art, ecology, and science. His installations provide space for transformative processes driven by more-than-human actors. This creates a continuous interplay in which anthropogenic constructs mutate based on biological systems. Read more here.