The installation Hexa-Hive Village with Airstrip for Bees was shown for the first time in 2015 as part of the art exhibition Semi-Wild Gardens at Kouvola city Poikilo Art Museum. In 2016, the installation was placed in Tarja Halonen Park, a public area in the centre of Helsinki.
Two years later the installation was renamed to Airstrip for Pollinators, as it attracts many more insects than just honeybees.
The installation consists of a set of hexagonal city furniture for bees and humans. Hexa-Hive Village is a landscaped area hosting honeybees and inviting people to hang out.
Airstrip for Pollinators is a flower bed, with a selection of native Finnish plants that bloom one after another, normally from April to end of September and offer nectar and pollen for bees and other insects. It is a narrow stripe which aims to animate typical desert like green areas of grass that have nothing or very little to offer pollinators.
This installation aims to highlight the concept of urban acupuncture and the mental and psychological value of public gardens for human health.
The article Inter-species encounters at the “Hexa-Hives” reflects in detail on the Hexa-Hive village and its effect on the inhabitants of the city. The findings include the emergence of a “garden quality” around the “Hexa-Hive”, an increase of local faunal and floral diversity and a notion of added wilderness in the city.
The article was published in the Urban Forestry and Urban Greening magazine, Volume 30 in March 2018, within a special issue on urban gardens. Please find an abstract here.
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