Bees Eye View

We have bee collaborating with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust focusing our work in and around RSPB Newport Wetlands Centre. This work referenced the three main Welsh Shrill Carder Bee populations in Pembrokeshire, Kenfig, Bridgend and the Gwent Levels.

We are working with Tom Bucher Flynn from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust while the bees hibernate over winter and the colony regenerates. Here is how we bought the invisible species into the mind of visitors?

An Immersive Engagement with the Shrill Carder Bee

Bee’s Eye View is a creative engagement project centred on the endangered Shrill Carder Bee, which was based at Newport Wetlands Centre. Rather than focusing directly on the bee itself, we used sound, poetry, and immersive sensory experiences to evoke emotional connection and raise awareness of its decline.

Participants were guided through the bees’ once-flourishing floral habitat, now reimagined through colour field installations. Using wireless headphones, they experienced a composed soundscape and specially commissioned poetry by Philip Gross. The soundscape included a shruti box, a classical indian instrument, tuned to the Shill Carders Bees’ distinctive buzzing pitch by Stefan Cartwright, who makes the instruments and helped us record a special titanium bell we then use to make resonant pauses in sequences of soundscape.

The workshops provided space for imaginative reflection, often inspiring participants, especially children, to playfully embody the role of the bee. By offering a multisensory, emotionally resonant encounter with biodiversity, Bee’s Eye View helped both children and teachers decompress from urban life and connect more deeply with the natural world.

Two thematic films, Winter and Summer, drawn from the same sound poetry and colourfield experience, reflected on the bee’s seasonal cycle of absence and return, using this rhythm as a metaphor for extinction, hope, and renewal.

Engagement documentation is housed at the People’s Collection.
Natural Resources Wales and Natur am Byth are hosting dedicated pages for each artist residency. 
Link: www.naturambyth.cymru

Our commissioned artwork films: Summer (2025: 4:08 min.) and Winter (2025: 4:46 min.).
Link: Arts Engagement - Natur am Byth