THE BEE SESSIONS RIGA – exhibition + workshops

Café Europa is a project initiated by Mons 2015, European Capital of Culture. With the theme ‘where culture meets technology’, it is the intention is to bring new technologies closer to the public at large. Café Europa appropriates the social qualities of a traditional café, but merges them with the creative opportunities coming along with new technologies. Café Europa is a multi-functional, architecturally flexible, mobile space that can be adapted to the needs of the local context as well as connecting other places in Europe with a similar nature into a creative network.

The Innovation Labs at Café Europa Riga are curated by the team of RIXC. The curators aim to shape new contact zones between academic research and diversity of contemporary art practices, art and science, sustainable businesses and social engagement in the 21st century.The programme will deal with renewable energy technologies and invites to rethink the future of urban ecosystems and the psychology of visual perception together with artists and scientists from Latvia and abroad.

AnneMarie Maes creates social sculptures that stimulate the development of a more sustainable world. For AnneMarie Maes art is life and life is ecological. She carries out long term projects – such as the Transparent Beehive, Urban Corridors or the Politics of Change. These projects lead to a stream of art works, interventions, experiments and books. Her recent works focus on bee colony monitoring and urban agriculture combined with an interest for grassroots communities and DIY technologies.

September 2–7 @ café Europa Riga : the BEE-sessions Urban Ecosystems – bee keeping and mapping foraging fields in the city. Exhibition and workshops by AnneMarie Maes (BE).

The 4-day workshop will continue to explore the complex world of honeybees, which artist and workshop leader Annemie Maes has extensively investigated for some years. The workshop will be started with an introduction on Urban OpenGreens project and the role of the honeybees within this ecosystem. Following, the participants will study the bees’ behaviour and architecture based upon insights from biology, art, design and materials science. The participants will explore specific structural patterns present in physical and biological environments (city/nature walk), from macrostructures to biological microsystems. Starting from the collection of gathered organic materials, the participants will develop novel, bio-inspired designs for bee houses. Participants are expected to collaborate in the discussions, with drawings and by creating objects.

More information on the BEE sessions is available browsing the BEE Notebooks and downloading the Foraging Fields booklet.