Apian (CH)

Through the solo exhibition titeled A Ministry of Bees by Apian (CH) - (Aladin Borioli, Mathilde Wiessing, Ellen Lapper, and Françoise Borioli), the gallery will be transformed into an immersive and playful environment, presenting a new iteration of their Bannkörbe project. Bannkörbe is a multimodal ethnography that examines a specific type of beekeeping technology in northern Germany. These enchanting hives, known as “spellbinding hives” in English, are adorned with grotesque and eerie figures designed to ward off the evil eye. By spatializing this research within the NŌUA gallery, the project actively engages with themes of technology, bees, and magic.

“Ministry of Bees is responsible for the relationship between humans and all bee species. It is tasked by bees to safeguard the history of this age-old relationship, and does so by producing polymorphous ethnographies. These ethnographies combine various media, including video, sound, photography, and writing in order to represent the world of bees to humans and promote Socialist Beekeeping practices. The Ministry aims to establish a framework for the future of this relationship in the context of climate breakdown – a future free from extractive practices and grounded in ancestral knowledge.”

The Ministry's work has been shown at C/O Berlin (DE), Salt Gallery (TR), La Becque (CH), Images Vevey (CH), and The Photographers' Gallery (UK), just to cite a few.