Telling the Bees
+ Honey Bee Colony
+ Archival Space
+ Sensors
Telling the Bees wires the obsessively controlled environment of an archive to the entangled ecosystem of a beehive. A colony of honeybees lives in a porcelain hive at the edge of the Amstelpark; sensors inside the hive measure temperature, humidity and electromagnetic communication, and pass those readings to an archive cabinet inside the art space, where they control its light and atmosphere. The cabinet houses the archive of Dutch artist Hans de Vries, including a small yellowed clipping titled Goed honingjaar, one of the earliest documents to link the loss of honeybee colonies to anthropogenic causes. The archive is a place where the symbolic body is kept after death, defended against change by sealed glass and regulated air. The hive works the other way: it preserves through continuous fluctuations in relation to its environment. The condition of the paper now depends on the condition of the bees.
+ Honey Bee Colony
+ Archival Space
+ Sensors
Telling the Bees wires the obsessively controlled environment of an archive to the entangled ecosystem of a beehive. A colony of honeybees lives in a porcelain hive at the edge of the Amstelpark; sensors inside the hive measure temperature, humidity and electromagnetic communication, and pass those readings to an archive cabinet inside the art space, where they control its light and atmosphere. The cabinet houses the archive of Dutch artist Hans de Vries, including a small yellowed clipping titled Goed honingjaar, one of the earliest documents to link the loss of honeybee colonies to anthropogenic causes. The archive is a place where the symbolic body is kept after death, defended against change by sealed glass and regulated air. The hive works the other way: it preserves through continuous fluctuations in relation to its environment. The condition of the paper now depends on the condition of the bees.
2026
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