On Exhibit for the Ellarslie Open 40 @ The Trenton City Museum from June 24-September 30, 2023 
Making my debut into the fine art world, I am proud to announce that I have a few pieces on view at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion. Colony/Collapse (left) was the recipient of the Hunter Research Award for digital art. These two pieces explore the relationship between the concepts of colonization and cultivation, using the humble honeybee as an allegory..
The word colony is etymologically linked with the notion of cultivation, stemming from the latin verb colere, meaning to cultivate. So, too, are patterns of human colonization inextricably linked with instances of cultivation - first, in the cultivation of edible plants that marked the beginning of the neolithic revolution around 12,000 years ago, and later, in the exploits of cross-continental imperialists. Now, in today’s post-colonial, highly globalized world, the degree of disruption - both ecological and cultural - that has been brought on by European imperialists’s migration across the oceans and development into an industrialized agricultural society, is at an all time high. We now sit on the brink of ecological and social collapse, and building an appreciation and understanding of the earth's delicate balances (and our places within it) is of utmost importance.
Man’s relationship with bees dates back to around 40,000 years ago - in the form of a spear point, found in a cave in Spain, attached to the shaft with beeswax. Later, around 3100 BC, the Egyptians practiced beekeeping, even using smoke to quell the hive - a practice that modern beekeepers still employ today.
Now, in the United States alone, bees pollinate around 20 billion dollars worth of crops each year. They play a crucial role in the booming agriculture industry. Yet - the bees that pollinate most of the country’s crops are not native. Indeed, these bees were brought to the Americas in the 1500’s, by Spanish colonizers. They are fairly effective in pollinating crops and non-native, invasive plants, however, play little to no role in the pollination of native plants. Native bees, which have suffered dangerously low population levels in the last several decades are much more effective at pollinating native plants.
In Colony/Collapse and The Pollinators, I invite the viewer to question: when we herald bees as the great pollinators, what do we mean by that? When we enjoy the spoils of the economic progress that industrialization has brought on, do we fully consider the human and ecological costs of colonization and cultivation? And if we do consider these costs, do our actions bear out any real concern? And ultimately: will colonization - both in a human and ecological sense - inevitably lead on to collapse?
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