Exhibition open from 1 April – 24 June 2022

Bee Lines Through the City explores the importance and interconnectedness of bees to nature’s diverse ecosystems. Close to 75% of the world’s crops producing fruits and seeds for human consumption depend, at least in part, on pollinators for sustained production, yield and quality. Yet bees, as one of the key pollinators, are under threat from use of agrichemicals, loss of habitat, climate change and the varroa mite parasite. Through art, music, dance and crafts we’ll explore how bees relate to different aspects of the natural and human world through the food we eat, our culture and our environment. We’ll investigate how humans can support bees in the city through sustainable, local food growing and better urban planning.

Reflection written by Lydia Hiorns in 2022:

“Bee Lines Through the City has been a great programme! We have grown in our awe and wonder of bees over the past few months. Many people who came to see the exhibition were amazed to find out that there are 25,000 recorded species worldwide, most of which live alone and don’t make honey. That is mind blowing for a person who previously thought that the majority of bees live in a hive! We have seen that bees are fantastic pollinators, along with butterflies, moths, flies and other insects. I was personally amazed to find out that the annual contribution of pollinators to the global economy has recently been estimated at up to £153bn. That sum seems unimaginable and shows the amount of work it would take humans to do this job if bees diminished! We are right to call them ‘busy bees’, they work like frantic flora couriers as their wings beat at an astonishing 200 beats or more per second.

Rupert Embleton-Smith, Emillie Whiteside & Beth Key of Wild Woodkin and Chris J Garrard each composed a piece of music dedicated to the Bumble Bee vibrating its body to the note of middle C. Francesca Willow from Ethical Unicorn then choreographed three dance pieces for this music and her movement language took inspiration from the physical communication of bees: their waggle dances, round dances, shimmering, and pointing out directions based on angles between flowers and the sun, all inspired the way the body moves within the landscape. This piece has inspired many visitors in the intricate world of bees and I am personally struck by such a wonderfilled design of creation.”

As a Christian organisation we believe that God has given humans the earth and its resources as a gift to care for – not destroy, wholly take or distribute unfairly. Christians call this justice-led approach to using, but also caring for, the earth’s resources ‘stewardship’. In the Bible, the book of Leviticus points out in chapter 19, that the goal in God’s economy isn’t to maximise one’s own profit but to make sure that a portion of one’s crop goes to those who need it most. A honeybee colony requires all these hive products for its own survival.

The exploitation and destruction of nature is against God’s heart in so many ways. The world holds intrinsic value as something that God has made. In the creation story, He pronounced creation ‘good’ before humanity was created. Therefore, we believe that we should steward this good world well; that is our responsibility to take care of and look after the world. God has given humanity delegated stewardship over his creation but we should exercise this authority in a way that reflects justice and fairness, not through brutality and carelessness, but with love and compassion and service. This includes being just and fair to non-human inhabitants of earth. Therefore, throughout the programme we asked visitors to share ways that we can work together for the good of the planet. A few of the great nuggets that were shared are pictured in the photos above. We encourage and challenge you to think how you can care for the world and those around you and to think deeply why that is important.

So many people were involved in this programme and we wanted to say thank you to Pia Castleton for running our powered by permaculture walk; Theresa Easton and Katie Pollard for helping with our Craft Action Collective workshops around making and printing on seed paper and making dyes from plants; Andii Bowsher, David Wilkinson, Hannah Malcolm, Richard Young and Rev Sarah Moon for joining our panel for Tell it to the bees, thinking about climate grief; Fyto Ltd for teaching us about hydroponics; dance artist Francesca Willow and Northumbria professor Miranda for helping us with our Q&A during the screening of Kiss the Ground screening; Andy, Mark, Federica, Francesca and Bea from Northumbria University for leading our two workshops Born to Bee Wild and our B-Line walk; and for everyone else who got involved in the programme!