Honeycomb Conversations was commissioned by Home LiveArt for Embrace the Place at Tate Modern, London.
‘Honeycomb Conversations’ embedded an awareness of honey and the importance of bees firmly within the body and psyche of the participant. The simple ritual of inviting a pair of participants to a small round table and to savour a sip of mead from a thimble; taste some honeycomb, and share their bee and honey stories was surprisingly powerful.
While words or images may inform, the visceral ritual of Honeycomb Conversations inspired and fixed a deeper knowledge. This knowledge, this understanding, was made all the more powerful by being linked to the participant’s own past, own experiences and own personal history. This was about the participant; the participant and bees and honey.
But more than this, it was about sharing that experience: it connected the participant with another person and that person’s stories of bees and honey in their past. Participants became aware of the collective human relationship to bees, and the universal joy of honey. And once gained, that awareness became part of what they carried away from the ritual, back into the world.’
Diana Jeater, participant at Honeycomb Conversations
