Between Us

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Kelly Litzenberger, "Untitled [self-portrait with beehive]," 2022

LEGO, honeycomb. Photo: Kelly Litzenberger.

Between Us features artworks by Nicole Charlebois-Rinas, Denise Flaman, George Glenn, Last Birds, Kelly Litzenberger, Judy McNaughton, Jeff Meldrum, Tim Moore, Melanie Monique Rose, Chantel Schultz, Sylvia Thompson, Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson​.

​Filling the air with the earthy scent of honey, Between Us packs the Art Gallery of Regina with drawings, sculptures and sound art resulting from a two-summer-long inter-species collaboration between twelve Saskatchewan artists and honeybees.

Working with gallery contacts in Prince Albert, Swift Current, Estevan and Yorkton, Art Gallery of Regina curator Sandee Moore invited twelve artists and collectives from across the province to learn from Aganetha Dyck.

Guided by Dyck, artists worked with professional beekeepers over two bee seasons to co-create artworks with their honeybees. "There are no secrets, "claims Dyck, who has created artworks with honeybee collaborators for over two decades, "there are only surprises." The exhibition "Between Us" is a collection of such surprises arising from inter-species and interdisciplinary collaboration. 

While the artists' methods of producing work for Between Us were, for the most part, the same — placing objects within a beehive for honeybees to transform with the addition of their comb — the resulting work is as varied as the artist themselves. In beehives spread across the province, apian logic danced with artistic inspiration as artists offered their ideas, materials and objects to bees; bees responded by embellishing sculptures with beeswax frills, mending gaps with their golden wax, mimicking vessel walls with their own constructions and packing available space with their delicate geometric comb. Through their processes and excretions, honeybees augment the artists' narratives with records of settlement, family, agriculture, spirituality, the ecology of recycling, the interconnectedness of all species and dependence upon weather and the land.

Between Us refers to the distances and differences between us and what we, as humans and insects, have in common. Bees fill gaps with honeycomb. Between Us uses honeycomb to bridge gaps in our understanding of ourselves, other people, histories, land and other species. A fragile and luminescent compassion has been built between us, joining artists, beekeepers, honeybees and audiences in a shared process of learning and wonder.

Exhibition Sponsor: Harvey Linnen Associates

Mentorship funded by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts