Single-channel video, digital photo on canvas, plywood laser cutout, bumble bee specimen, textile
In this multimedia installation, viewers are ushered into a ritualistic tribute to the wild bee. This ritual, begun by kneeling at the face of an optical microscope, invites the viewer to enter a visual space that’s smothered in a honey-like hue and is inhabited solely by the subject, Bombus impatiens (common bumble bee), and the observer. As the viewer “exits” the alter, a video projection featuring Apis mellifera, the European honeybee, extends the ritual beyond the confines of the microscope. In this space, the only option is to focus your gaze on the sublime chaos that is the anatomy of the specimen, and to be grounded by the reverberating buzz of its living cousins swarming from every direction. Scenes sutured together from footage captured on the campus of Princeton University juxtapose the wilderness that is honeybees performing the rarest of swarming behaviors, and captive bees at the entrance of a local apiary garden.
Ultimately, this piece repurposes scientific instruments and ecological surveillance methodologies as tools through which willing participants can uncover the hidden sacrality of the wild bee and pay homage to this disappearing insect pollinator.
Ultimately, this piece repurposes scientific instruments and ecological surveillance methodologies as tools through which willing participants can uncover the hidden sacrality of the wild bee and pay homage to this disappearing insect pollinator.
