In response to the ecological crisis of declining honeybee populations, Wysing Arts Centre proposes to invite artists of all disciplines to take the lead in setting up beehives on spare pieces of land across the East of England. Artists would inspire the wider community to get involved through, among other things, working with schools, community groups and others to plant bee-friendly flowers and plants to support the bee population, which is in rapid decline in the region. Aligned closely to Wysing's experience of collective ways of working, group hives would also be established in order to create a support structure for the project. A dedicated website will be developed to plot locations of the hives to encourage people to get involved and create an accessible and visible network of these new beehives across the region. The work adds to a growing movement within the visual arts, that began in the late 1960s, in which artists seek to address issues that face society as a whole, most recently seen in the exhibition 'Radical Nature' at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.
"I think this is an incredibly exciting idea. The honeybee is under serious threat with huge implications for our agrculture. The more hives the better! But I also think there is immense artistic potential here. Bees have inspired artists and writers down the centuries from Virgil to Sylvia Plath. They have been used as metaphors for human industry and the hierarchy of the state. I would love to see what modern artists make of the idea." Martha Kearney BBC presenter (Who Killed the Honeybee, The World At One, Newsnight Review)
See the shortlisted entries for this region and read about the judging panel
Donna Lynas, Artistic Director (Chief Executive), Wysing Arts Centre
Donna Lynas, who conceived the Artists taking the Lead project proposal, has been Artistic Director of Wysing Arts Centre - a research and development centre for the visual arts set on the 11 acre site of a former farm 9 miles south west of Cambridge - since April 2005. She was instrumental in delivering Wysing’s £1.7 million capital development project which provides state-of-the-art artists’ studios, new media and educational facilities. Additionally, she has developed a new approach to working with the 24 studio artists based at Wysing, all of whom receive professional development support during their three year tenure at the Centre. Alongside supporting studio artists based regionally, Wysing runs an international residency programme in which the organisation works predominantly with artists’ collectives on different approaches to participation and knowledge exchange.
Previously Donna was Curator at the South London Gallery for six years where she curated a large number of exhibitions and projects. Among others, she worked with artists AK Dolven, Christian Boltanski, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Henrik Plenge Jacobsen and Keith Tyson on their solo exhibitions. She also curated a number of group exhibitions including Perfectly Placed and Independence (with Kit Hammonds -a show to commemorate the gallery’s new independent status which included over 100 artists). In 1999 she established the gallery’s influential SLG Live Art programme which at its most ambitious presented a durational performance of One Million Years by Japanese artist On Kawara - involving a series of 16 people performing a live work in a glass box in Trafalgar Square continuously for 7 days and nights, in 2004.
From 1995 – 1999 Donna was Touring Exhibitions Organiser and then Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. Prior to that she studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and had her own studio based sculptural practice for five years, in Dundee and Reading.