400 Hives

400 Hives

A bio-art investigation exploring the role of yeast dormant within Ogiek honey of Mau Forest.

The yeast held within honey is an active living cultural agent. Honey is the product of pollen and nectar collected by bees from the wildflowers and plants in their environment, so Ogiek honey holds Mau forest’s biodiversity in its concentrated form. To consume it is to consume the forest.

Mediums

Raw Honey

Wood

Honeycomb from Mau Forest

Extracted yeast

Lager

Partners

Ogiek Peoples' Development Program

Waag

Yeast growing on a plate in the Bio-arts Lab

Yeast growing on a plate in the Bio-arts Lab

Honey comb in Mau Forest Kenya

Honey comb in Mau Forest Kenya

400 Hives is a speculative bio-art work, presenting yeast in three forms: crystalised, dried and packaged in capsules, active and alive in a wild brewed beer.
Ogiek honey is a bio-active and culturo-active substance and performs a crucial cultural, medicinal and nutritional role in Ogiek culture. Honey and the hives from which it was harvested are the living practice that binds Ogiek people to their forests from which they have been evicted. The ongoing harvesting of Honey and its use in medical products as well as in the making of Honey Wine is one of the clearest and strongest indicators of the strength of Ogiek culture and is a key part of their ontology and relation to the forest as it is and was.
Honey further defines the Ogiek relationship to the wider majority population, becoming an object of trade, with Ogiek known as beekeepers and herbalist traditional healers. Honey has played a strong cultural role far beyond the edges of Mau forest and this cultural potency has been forgotten by cultures worldwide, perhaps best symbolized in the global decline of all pollinators. Ogiek Honey then is more than symbolic, it is a bio-active and culturo-active substance. If Honey is the product of pollen and nectar collected by bees from the wildflowers and plants in their environments, then Ogiek Honey holds Mau forest’s biodiversity in its concentrated form. 
To consume it is to consume the forest.
Harvested from Segemik bees by Wilson Memusi Ngusilo in Kenya in 2022 and created as part of the Bio-Hack Academy with Waag, Amsterdam.

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