Art Event: The Beehive Collective

Detail image from Mesoamerica Resiste
from the Beehive Collective website

On November 12, the Beehive Collective came to the Boyden Gallery to speak about their recent work, Mesoamerica Resiste.  The Bee Hive Collective is a group of artists based in Maine that create intricate prints made of didactic imagery, creating modern day visual fables.  Their art depicts cultural and political issues that are paramount in the world today.

In creating these works, the artists use real life examples from people that encountered the depicted issues first hand, traveling to other countries to hear from rural communities.  Mesoamerica Resiste depicts the ongoing colonization of Mesoamerica, from the arrival of Europeans to the corporate take over that is facing them today.  The front of the work is called Plan Mesoamerica, which is a twist on a cartographer's map from when the Europeans were colonizing Mesoamerica.  On the outskirts of the map, where depictions of the rulers of the expanding country would have been depicted, the artists created representational forms for the economic colonizers, such as NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, which is depicted as a Judge with scales of injustice for siding with corporations at the expense of people and communities.

The World Trade Organization, depicted as a Judge
From the Behance page of Nathan Vieland, one of the inkers of the Beehive Collective

 The poster opens up to find another depiction, showing communities as animals fighting against the consumerist expansion.  These images are depictions of some of the many stories that the Beehive Collective recieved when they traveled Mesoamerica, asking the stories of individuals and communities.  Swirling speech scrolls are adapted from Aztec cultural roots, swirling together and flowing throughout the piece, allowing the animals to fight back against the technological forces.  An example of the adaptation of speech scrolls is included within the first detail image.

Some scenes are taken more literally than others, including the scene of the invading army being physically pushed back from a snail.  This was based off of a picture of a woman pushing back the shoulders of a police officer forcing their town to relocate.

Detail of Mesoamerica Resiste,
from Nathan Vieland's Behance page

This work took the Beehive Collective nine years to complete.  It was a collaborative piece entirely drawn and inked by hand before being scanned to create prints, blowing the image up to four times it's original size.  The Collective uses their prints as learning materials and take them with them when visiting schools and other outreach programs.  They enjoy the reproducible quality of their work, as when presenting to an age group too young to fully understand, they let the children color the poster and interact with it in that way.

Their presentation of their work was fascinating and made the audience think about what exactly is "free trade" and what the effects of it were.  Their depiction of activist artwork is captivating and really causes the message to sink in.  At first glance, their art style is overwhelming, but upon closer look, the many details are intriguing and make the audience want to delve into the stories that the pieces tell.  I look forward to seeing the Beehive Collective's future works.