Workshops

Participative Workshops:

“Ecologies of Reproduction” for MA Course Ecology and Contemporary Performance, Uniarts, October 2016 and May 2017

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“Redes de interacción entre el paisaje, plantas y polinizadores”, Master de Paisatge, Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya, October 2017

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“Festa de Primavera/Polen”, Escola Angel Baixeras, Barcelona, Spain, June 2016, 75 participants in 3 groups

“Architectures for the Other Side”, Pixelache Festival, Helsinki, September 2016, 11 participants,

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A three-day “Architectures for the Other Side” Workshop was organized as a part of the program of Pixelache Festival 2016, at Lapinlahti Hospital. The workshop is inspired by the novel Enkelten Verta (The Blood of Angels) by author Johanna Sinisalo, and the works by master architects mimicrying and adapting bee-made patterns and structures to human architecture.

Three different experimental houses for Urban Bees were built by eleven participants as a teamwork. The workshop was guided by biologist and beekeeper Lauri Ruottinen, craftsman / special maker Jussi Kontio and Christina Stadlbauer and Ulla Taipale from Melliferopolis.

The workhosp was supported by Kone Foundation and Pixelache Festival.

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“Bees for Architecture – Architecture for Bees”, Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, June 2014, 10 participants, lead by Australian artist Nigel Helyer.

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The 3-day workshop at the Kaisanemi Botanical Gardens offered by Australian artist Dr. Nigel Helyer as part of Melliferopolis project. The participants were working with natural materials gathered from the Kaisaniemi Botanic Gardens  were used to create Bee friendly sculptural hive, named as Bee Ark,  which was incorporated  in the Botanic Garden. The second focus was the creation of a series of small sculptural objects to be housed inside conventional bee hives allowing the Bees to ‘co-create’ works which will later be shown as part of a Melliferopolis exhibition.

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“Sensored Hive – Translating Bees”, Pixelache Camp, Vartiosaari, 2014, 50 participants

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As part of the Citizen Science project Socientize, Melliferopolis hosted a hands-on workshop where a Langstroth beehive was equipped with sensors to monitor the condition of the hive. The hive was located in Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, near the meteorological station and data coming from the hive was transmitted to the open access database.

The bees were kindly donated by Artova ry association, who installed bees in Kuusiluoto and had a swarm on June 8th 2014.
Two other locations with hives (Barcelona, Bordeaux) are equipped with the same technology and are linked to the same database (openbeeresearch.org/ and www.openbeehive.eu/app/data-visualization/).

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“Understanding the essence of flowers –Exploring Pollen”, Harakka Luontotalo and island, 2013, 24 participants

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There is an intrinsic link between bees and flowers. In evolution they arose at the same time, bees feeding on nectar and pollen; the flowers relying on the pollinators for reproduction. Bees visiting flowers and harvesting their essence is a choreography that nature performs each year. In these encounters, the flowers disclose their secret to the bees, who take it home in the form of scent and taste.

In this three-day workshop, we explored the environment of the Melliferopolis bees living on Harakka Island, in front of Helsinki, Finland.
First, we concentrated on the scientific aspects of the bees’ surrounding in the chemistry laboratory built on the island in 1929 for military purposes.

In a second part, we focused on the poetic aspects of plants and pollinators, their relation and communication with each other. Inspired by these dynamics, we engage with the visual aspects of pollen, inviting drawing, painting and collage to reveal stories and metaphores behind this natural phenomenon of pollination.

The workshop was part of Aalto Biofilia –Base for Biological Arts program and took place in collaboration with Harakka Luontotalo of Helsinki Environmental Centre.
It was guided by Christina Stadlbauer (beekeeper, artist, chemist), Asta Ekman (chemist, responsable of the Harakka environmental laboratory) and Lina Kusaite (illustrator, artist), and facilitated by Aalto Biofilia project manager Ulla Taipale and lab manager Marika Hellman.

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”Melliferopolis Hands-on Workshop”, Harakka Luontotalo and island, 2012, 15 participants, lead by Christina Stadlbauer and Lauri Ruottinen.

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Beekeeping courses:

Introduction to Beekeeping and Insect Ecology, Arbis Adult Education Centre, Helsinki, several courses since 2017. (Stadlbauer)