PhD Supervisor Murdoch University Caboolture South, Western Australia, Australia
Bees having been making headlines across the world, spurred by a pollination crisis, publicisation of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder, and fears of a bee apocalypse. But bees have had a fundamental place in human society, culture, and livelihoods, and we have expressed these relationships through art. From early cave paintings, bees were primarily represented as a insect that provided honey, in the form of Apis. Today, the diversity of representations of media used, the symbolism attached to the bee, and the diversity of bee species has expanded. Media now include virtual media, performances as bees, and bees as art or art creators themselves. They now often represent the state of the environment, but can also symbolise harmony, hardwork, or idiosyncratic traits associated with a particular species. And whilst Apis still dominates, we are starting to see a greater appreciation of the diversity of wild bees of the world being represented through art. Bees clearly have had a long-lasting, important place not just in human livelihoods as pollinators, but as sources of inspiration, beauty, and symbolic resonance, and today our representations in art may be a key way to ensure that they are preserved not just in art, but in the "wild."
