Inspired by the collaboration and solidarity among the hive, we [Güngör, Maria and Nil] organized a participatory art project together at Sinopale 6, between 26-30 August 2017.
The program started off with a documentary film narrating the declining bee population throughout the world in the last fifteen years. The following two days, the artist-tutors and local beekeepers informed the participants about pollination, life in the hive, bee products and beekeeping. The lecture was illustrated in real life in an apiary where participating kids and youngsters visited the hives in beekeeper’s costumes and observed thousands of bees alive. Children between the ages 6 and 10 depicted what they have learned in drawings, a medium to consolidate their acquired knowledge. Another collaborative method of learning was via body language, where kids enacted the life of bees through dance, in costumes.
Throughout the program, children were accompanied by a group of young adults between the ages 20 and 25, who were coached on printing and engraving techniques. The young adults then collated the drawings of children and applied them to print. At the end of the four days, six copies of a unique hand printed book on bees was collectively produced by a total of 40 participants aged between 6 to 25 years old.
In the month of September 2017, this artwork and the collaborative process were exhibited at the Dutch Consulate, the Istanbul Technical University Taşkışla Building, The 45th International Apimondia Congress at the Istanbul Congress Center and at the 3rd Bodrum Biennial.
Through our workshops, we aspire to pass on the wisdom of nature and the world of bees, and to facilitate the creative expression of this accumulated knowledge in different techniques and art forms. Our wish is to make the “For the Love of Bee!” colony sustainable by realizing this collective endeavor with a wide range of initiatives and participants.
The product of this workshop, the book and the collaborative process is exhibited at the Dutch Consulate, the Istanbul Technical University Taşkışla Building, The 45th International Apimondia Congress at the Istanbul Congress Center and at the 3. Bodrum Biennial, Learning From the Bees Conference Netherlands.
This initiative sponsored by the Dutch Consulate Cultural Department has given a start to a series of workshops in the years to come.
Please visit For the Love of Bee for further information.
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