As part of the York Literature Festival 2018, we launched the Pollination Project Anthology of artwork, poetry and fiction. Julia Smith introduced us to her fascinating work as a beekeeper and gave us a great insight into the super-organism that is the beehive. We were treated to an interactive beehive created by York Uni student Guilherme Silva. The beautiful photography exhibition by Jim Poyner was on display in the Arts Foyer and showed us Julia at work around York. Debbie Maxwell brought along some incredible design fictions that are part of her Telling the Bees project. These designs imagine a world where bees are almost gone, or completely gone, and the student designers had their creations made flesh by a 3D printer. Participants of the launch event were invited to engage creatively with these objects, imagining narratives where they might be in use. I look forward to seeing the results of these. The students and staff involved in the project read their work from the anthology and told us about further projects in the community that have been ‘pollinated’ by the experience, including working with gardening and planting for mental health, and helping Rowntrees school to design their very own bee hotel. It’s been an amazing project, and we hope that the website will continue to pollinate more art, writing and design.
York St John Pollination Project 