COLONY EXPANSE INSTALLATION
New York City
About the Installation
The Colony Expanse installation started as a location-specific art piece meant to represent the fragility and complexities of colony movement and population expansion. It is modeled after a swarm. The installation consists of 193 hand-painted bees on wooden boards—each one represents a member state of the United Nations. The longer these boards stay exposed to the elements, the more they will deteriorate. This fluid piece shows the difficulties the bees are facing in our changing environment and how the current situation is an imbalance as the bees are trying to exist in a human-centric world.
Engaging the Masses
This piece started out as an attempt to engage the masses in an altruistic vision. It is shifting over time as a piece reflecting the current ‘climate’ on all fronts. Part of the key to effective conservation is becoming more comfortable with change and fragility—to lean into elements of connectivity, no matter how uncomfortable, rather than that which divides us.
Traveling Installation
This piece was installed summer of 2018 in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan. It was a collaboration between The Good of the Hive, the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations, NYC Parks Art in the Parks Program and Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
The piece traveled to Smithsonian’s National Zoo in the fall of 2018.
After being on display for six months, I brought the pieces back to the studio and cleaned them up and worked with them to secure them.
As the installation awaits its next location, the individual bees are for sale through my studio. Contact me if you are interested in collecting a bee.
