Residues

This 16 minute single-channel, silent video traces the path of bees as they crawl across the surface of a hive. The images are transformed into shapes reminiscent of forest fires, the vapor trails of aircraft and rockets, and occasionally, the awful spectacle of nighttime carpet bombing.

Single channel video projection

These scenes of transformation and destruction point to the complexities of our human relationship with bees. Since the reports of mysterious honey bee declines in the mid 2000’s, a phenomenon that was given the name “Colony Collapse Disorder,” a great deal of attention has been paid to their plight. However, the campaigns to “save the bees” have largely overlooked the diversity of native bees that do a great deal of the work pollinating the food we depend on for our survival.  Part of our pollination problem lies in our cross-species dependence on the honeybee. Our age-old relationship can be seen in evidence that dates back over 5000 years in Egypt. Today bees are tied to a capitalist economy that harnesses them as a form of livestock to pollinate crops for profit. For example, half of all U.S. bee colonies (1.5 Million) are transported to California just to pollinate almonds. This unnatural migration can result in detrimental effects for the native insects. Honeybees are opportunistic foragers, and as they make their way across the country, they reduce the resources available to the native bees in their specific ecosystems.