The Other Side

“I can never fly to heaven,

To the seventh of the heavens, To the distant home of Ukko, With these wings of little virtue.

”

Kalevala, edited by Elias Lönnrot, 1835

The Other Side, 2018 Edited by Ulla Taipale Graphic design and photographs: Ulla Taipale Illustrations: AndrĂŠs Marin Jarque Texts: See text credits Bookbinding: Poncho MartĂ­nez Printed and bound in Barcelona, Spain, 2018 ISBN 978-952-94-1214-3 With support of Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

The Other Side

edited by

Ulla Taipale

CONTENTS

6

Ulla Taipale. Introduction to The Other Side, 2018

8

Johanna Sinisalo. The Blood of Angels, 2011

10

Virgilio. Geórgicas, Book IV, 29 b.C.

12

Svetlana Aleksiévich. Voices of Chernobyl, 1997

14

Maurice Maeterlinck. The Life of the Bee, 1901

16

Mercè Rodoreda. Death in Spring, 1986

18

Elias Lönnrot. Kalevala, Rune XV, Restauration of Lemminkäinen, 1835

22

Jo Shapcott. I tell the Bees, 2010

24 Credits 26 References

The Other Side Our curiosity and our need to understand other forms of intelligence have brought about, among other interests, the study of the life of bees in different centuries and cultures. There are a striking number of thinkers who have shown an interest in the ingenuity and the extraordinary capacities of bees, in addition to the properties of honey, propolis, and wax for healing and as preservatives. Since ancient times, these insects have also been associated with immortality and the ability to communicate across parallel worlds.

The Poblenou cemetery is like a silent, labyrinthine city in the middle of the large, bustling metropolis. At the time when it was built, in the late eighteenth century, it was located on the outskirts of Barcelona, but was later absorbed by the growing city’s sprawl. It is inhabited and controlled by angels - pieces of marble created by the best sculptors of their day. The bite of time and weather is unforgiving, and the stony forms have been altered by environmental aggressions. Thus, an angel has lost part of a wing; another figure is missing one altogether, and the face of a third angel has vanished almost completely.

Like these figures, the existence of bees has also become endangered over time.

6

In The Other Side, bees halt in mid-air to guide visitors on a tour down the cemetery’s paths, through the thoughts of seven authors from different countries and centuries. The winged stone creatures accompany us as we listen to some audible literary excerpts, leading us to wonder: Where do bees go when they ‘disappear’? What is the message they are sending us from the past to the present?

How will that message be interpreted in a future or parallel world? Is our intelligence capable of finding answers to all these questions?

This book documents the artwork The Other Side, installed in the cemetery of Poblenou in Barcelona between March 15th and 31st December 2018. The project is inspired by the Finnish novel The Blood of Angels by Johanna Sinisalo, and was developed within the framework of the long term project, Melliferopolis - Honeybees in Urban Environments.

The Barcelona edition of The Other Side [L’altre costat] was commissioned by Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona for the Beehave exhibition, which was asking: where are the bees?

7

JOHANNA SINISALO The Blood of Angels 2011

Our ancestors must have envied, and perhaps feared, the bees. Not because they could sting, but because they were necessary and yet uncontrollable; they couldn’t be tied in a stall, shut up in a barn or tethered to a post. You couldn’t call them like a dog or treat them to a meaty bone or a drink of milk. And when our ancestors realized that bees had an ability to travel between worlds, a capacity to break through the walls of the universe when necessary to save the swarm or the species, they tried to use charms, magic spells and rituals to obtain a little piece of that divine ability.

Knowledge of this can be found in traditions everywhere once you know what to look for. It’s been so watered down, so altered and obscured, that you can’t always recognize it. But it’s there.

In virtually every culture where honey is gathered it is considered a food of the gods and is also often thought to confer immortality.

The bodies of great men have been interred in honey (this actually does prevent the body from decomposing, but there may be other reasons behind it as well).

In Wales it’s believed that bees are the only animals that originate directly from paradise.

Porfirius wrote that the moon goddess Artemis sent peoples’ spirits to Earth in the form of a bee, and - get this - after death the spirits returned to their own world like a bee to its hive.

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9

VIRGIL GEORGICS, BOOK IV 29 BC

And though the end of a brief life awaits the bees themselves (since it never extends beyond the seventh summer) the species remains immortal, and the fortune of the hive is good for many years, and grandfathers’ grandfathers are counted. …

With the leader safe all are of the same mind: if the leader’s lost they break faith, and tear down the honey they’ve made, themselves, and dissolve the latticed combs. The leader is the guardian of their labours: to the leader they do reverence, and all sit round the leader in a noisy throng, and crowd round in large numbers, and often they lift the leader on their shoulders and expose their bodies in war, and, among wounds, seek a glorious death.

Noting these tokens and examples some have said that a share of divine intelligence is in bees, and a draught of aether: since there is a god in everything, earth and the expanse of sea and the sky’s depths: from this source the flocks and herds, men, and every species of creature, each derive their little life, at birth: to it surely all then return, and dissolved, are remade, and there is no room for death, but still living they fly to the ranks of the stars, and climb the high heavens.

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11

SVETLANA ALEKSIÉVICH Voices of Chernobyl 1997

But here’s what did happen. My grandfather kept bees, five nests of them. They didn’t come out for two days, not a single one. They just stayed in their nests. They were waiting. My grandfather didn’t know about the explosion, he was running all over the yard: what is this? What’s going on?

Something’s happened to nature. And their system, as our neighbor told us, he’s a teacher, it’s better than ours, better tuned, because they heard it right away. The radio wasn’t saying anything, and the papers weren’t either, but the bees knew. They came out on the third day.

Now, wasps—we had wasps, we had a wasps’ nest above our porch, no one touched it, and then that morning they weren’t there anymore—not dead, not alive. They came back six years later.

Radiation: it scares people and it scares animals. And birds. And the trees are scared, too, but they’re quiet. They won’t say anything. It’s one big catastrophe, for everyone. But the Colorado beetles are out and about, just as they always were, eating our potatoes, they scarf it down to the leaf, they’re used to poison. Just like us.

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13

MAURICE MAETERLINCK The Life of the Bee 1901

But what have we to do, some will ask, with the intelligence of the bees? What concern is it of ours whether this be a little less or a little more? Why weigh, with such infinite care, a minute fragment of almost invisible matter, as though it were a fluid whereon depended the destiny of man? I hold, and exaggerate nothing, that our interest herein is of the most considerable.

The discovery of a sign of true intellect outside ourselves procures us something of the emotion Robinson Crusoe felt when he saw the imprint of a human foot on the sandy beach of his island.

We seem less solitary than we had believed.

And indeed, in our endeavour to understand the intellect of the bees, we are studying in them that which is most precious in our own substance: an atom of the extraordinary matter which possesses, wherever it attach itself, the magnificent power of transfiguring blind necessity, of organising, embellishing, and multiplying life; and, most striking of all, of holding in suspense the obstinate force of death, and the mighty, irresponsible wave that wraps almost all that exists in an eternal unconsciousness.

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15

MERCÉ RODOREDA Death in Spring 1986

We began to amuse ourselves by hunting bees. And crushing them.

She gathered honey and put it on the ground, just a drop. When the bees came to suck it, we would squash them. Sometimes, instead of squashing them, we would cover them by an upside-down glass, imprisoning them until they died. The first night, I could hear the bees, the ones that weren’t trapped in honey, buzzing and knocking into the tin walls.

On windy days, we noticed that the bees collected a tiny piece of gravel with their legs and flew with the added weight, so the wind would find it more difficult to toss them about. When the wind stopped, they immediately released the gravel. We discovered that in one day when a bee flew past my stepmother and dropped a little piece on her forehead.

The older bees would fly to the fountain to the buttercup tear; many died on their return, strained by the weight. The younger bees would collect the infants with their snouts—they had deposited them on the leaf while they worked—and carry them away to sleep. The bees could not comprehend what was happening; they would fly to the sundial and bury their death all round it. They were so sad that year: instead of sucking wisteria, they headed to the fields and sucked bitter flowers.

16

17

KALEVALA Rune XV: Restauration of Lemminkäinen Edited by Elias Lönnrot 1835

18

...

Then again out-speaks the mother: “Honey-bee, thou ether birdling, Fly a third time on thy journey, Fly away to high Jumala, Fly thou to the seventh heaven, Honey there thou’lt find abundant, Balsam of the highest virtue, Only used by the Creator, Only made from the breath of Ukko.

God anoints his faithful children, With the honey of his wisdom, When they feel the pangs of sorrow, When they meet the powers of evil.

Dip thy winglets in this honey, Steep thy plumage in His sweetness, Hither bring the all-sufficient Balsam of the great Creator; This will still my hero’s anguish, This will heal his wounded tissues, This restore his long-lost vision, Make the Northland hills re-echo With the magic of his singing, With his wonderful enchantment.”

Thus the honey-bee made answer: “I can never fly to heaven, To the seventh of the heavens, To the distant home of Ukko, With these wings of little virtue.”

Lemminkainen’s mother answered: “Thou canst surely fly to heaven, To the seventh of the heavens, O’er the Moon, beneath the sunshine, Through the dim and distant starlight.

On the first day, flying upward, Thou wilt near the Moon in heaven, Fan the brow of Kootamoinen; On the second thou canst rest thee On the shoulders of Otava; On the third day, flying higher, Rest upon the seven starlets, On the heads of Hetewanè; Short the journey that is left thee, Inconsiderable the distance To the home of mighty Ukko, To the dwellings of the blessed.”

Thereupon the bee arising, From the earth flies swiftly upward, Hastens on with graceful motion, By his tiny wings borne heavenward, In the paths of golden moonbeams, Touches on the Moon’s bright borders, Fans the brow of Kootamoinen, Rests upon Otava’s shoulders, Hastens to the seven starlets, To the heads of Hetewanè,

Flies to the Creator’s castle, To the home of generous Ukko, Finds the remedy preparing, Finds the balm of life distilling, In the silver-tinted caldrons, In the purest golden kettles; On one side, heart-easing honey, On a second, balm of joyance, On the third, life-giving balsam.

Here the magic bee, selecting, Culls the sweet, life-giving balsam, Gathers too, heart-easing honey, Heavy-laden hastens homeward.

Time had traveled little distance, Ere the busy bee came humming To the anxious mother waiting, In his arms a hundred cuplets, And a thousand other vessels, Filled with honey, filled with balsam, Filled with the balm of the Creator.

Lemminkainen’s mother quickly Takes them on her, tongue and tests them, Finds a balsam all-sufficient.

Then the mother spake as follows: “I have found the long-sought balsam,

Found the remedy of Ukko, Where-with God anoints his people, Gives them life, and faith, and wisdom, Heals their wounds and stills their anguish, Makes them strong against temptation, Guards them from the evil-doers.”

Now the mother well anointing, Heals her son, the magic singer, Eyes, and ears, and tongue, and temples, Breaks, and cuts, and seams, anointing, Touching well the life-blood centres, Speaks these words of magic import To the sleeping Lemminkainen: “Wake, arise from out thy slumber, From the worst of low conditions, From thy state of dire misfortune!”

Slowly wakes the son and hero, Rises from the depths of slumber, Speaks again in magic accents, These the first words of the singer: “Long, indeed, have I been sleeping, Long unconscious of existence, But my sleep was full of sweetness, Sweet the sleep in Tuonela, Knowing neither joy nor sorrow!” ...

21

JO SHAPCOTT I Tell the Bees 2010

He left for good in the early hours with just one book, held tight in his left hand: The Cyclopedia of Everything Pertaining to the Care Of the Honey-Bee; Bees, Hives, Honey, Implements, Honey-Plants, Etc. And I begrudged him every single et cetera, every honey-strainer and cucumber blossom, every bee-wing and flown year and dead eye.

I went outside when the sun rose, whistling to call out them as I walked towards the hive.

I pressed my cheek against the wood, opened my synapses to bee hum, I could smell bee hum.

‘It’s over, honies,’ I whispered, ‘and now you’re mine.’

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CREDITS The Other Side audio space, Cemetery of Poblenou Beehave exhibition/The Other Side Curator, Martina Millà Coordinator, Véronique Dupas Cementiris de Barcelona: Head of Communications, Marta Aladrén Ribas Communication assistant, Carolina Diaz Ortega Illustrations: Andrés Marin Jarque Audio recordings and editing: Kirill Lorech and Mikko Viskari Readings: Emilia Esteban Langstroff (Catalan) Kira O´Reilly (English) Andrés Marin Jarque (Spanish) Translations: El Correccional Sign engravings: Alis Gravados Installation of the signs at the cemetery: Agser & Cementiris de Barcelona Augmented reality application: Arilyn 24

The Other Side Book Photos and introduction text: Ulla Taipale Illustrations: Andrés Marin Jarque Modelling in the cemetery of Poblenou: Lotta Petronella Proof-editing: Charlie Clark Artesan bookbinding: Poncho Martínez Prints: Artyplan SL Fundació Joan Miró and Beehave exhibition: www.fmirobcn.org/en/exhibitions/5728/beehave Cemetery of Barcelona: www.cbsa.cat/?lang=en Melliferopolis - Honeybees in Urban Environments www.melliferopolis.net The Barcelona edition of The Other Side [L’altre costat] was commissioned in 2017 by Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona for the Beehave exhibition, curated by Martina Millà, in collaboration with the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona and Cementiris de Barcelona. The artwork was then reflected upon in my Master´s Thesis, To the Other Side A Long Walk with Bees and Angels, at Aalto University on the Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art Master’s program. The Master’s Thesis was supervised by Helena Sederholm and Raquel Rennó.

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REFERENCES

Alexievich, S. (1997/2005). Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of the Nuclear Disaster. (K. Gessen, Transl.), Dalkey Archive Press.

Lรถnnrot, E. (1835/2017, June 20). The Kalevala/Rune XV. In Wikisource. (J.M.Crawford, (1888) Transl.) Retrieved 12:06, September 18, 2018, from URL:https://en.wikisource.org/w/index php?title=The_Kalevala/Rune_XV&oldid=6876544 Maeterlinck, M. (1901/1914) . The Life of the Bee. (A. Sutro Transl.), Ebook by The Project Gutenberg: Retrieved February 13th, 2017 from URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4511/pg4511.txt Rodoreda, M. (1986/2018) . Death in Spring. (M.Tennet Transl.), Penguin.

Shapcott, J. (2011) . I Tell The Bees. Six Bee Poems. Poetry Society.

Retrieved March 15th 2017, from URL: https://poetrysociety.org. uk/poems/six-bee-poems/ Sinisalo, J. (2011/2014) . The Blood of Angels. ( L. Rogers. Trans.)

London: Peter Owen Publishers.

Virgil (29 b.C./2001) . The Georgics. Poetry In Translation (A. S. Kline, Transl.), Retrieved April 10th 2017 from URL: https://www. poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilGeorgicsIV.php

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