Author: Lucy Wray

I’m delighted to be part of this exhibition, which seeks to highlight the plight of our British Bees and their connections within our ecosystem.

The Interconnectedness of All Things: Fifty Bees is an exhibition of fifty beautifully sculpted bees by artist Lydia Needles. Exhibited alongside each bee will be a companion piece created by fifty guest artists.  Artists, makers, writers and musicians have produced one new work in response to one of the fifty bee pieces exhibited, in order to give a fuller illustration of the diversity of our bee population, how endangered it is and how our pollinators are completely interlinked with our ecosystem.

My companion piece references the ecology of the Lasioglossum leucozonium – White-zoned Furrow Bee and was created as a museum botany sample from a dystopian future where we can only see nature through the waste created in the twenty first century.

Ecology sample of calcareous grassland, featuring the Leontodon Hispidus, Rough Hawkbit, a perennial native to the British Iles. Ranked first for meadow flora nectar production and a favorite visit for the White-zoned Furrow Bee.

This piece was made using a whole host of salvaged resources. Materials often thought of as waste. Single-use plastic from bread and frozen chips packaging. Last season’s wallpaper and fabric samples, old clothes and maps.

Reanimating used materials in this way aims to highlight the worth of the things we throw away. There is a value to attached to the energy we use to create these materials and the cost is our natural world

Exhibiting at the Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre, Coal Orchard, Taunton, Somerset TA1 1JL.          9^th March – 6^th May