The World Tree
“Raised on the tales of the North wind, my siblings and I knew of trolls, and bears, and fir trees. From North to South our ancestors came. Roots to pollen-dusted tips, North Pole to South Pole, the Globe turns on the axis of the World Tree.”
I wrote this text on the insect-screened gate I made for the South Gatehouse at Hyde Park Barracks. Inside was the “World Tree” (part one), a native cypress, Callitris muelleri breaking up through the floorboards. In its branches, in a migrant’s suitcase, I housed a colony of live bees.
Through a complex of galvanised downpipe, the bees could access the pollen and honey of the trees in Hyde Park. Visitors could pull a flap in the case to view the bees working on the comb. Honey was for sale in the Museum shop in jars I had embellished with metal and bronze welded bees. In the courtyard was the Beeship ( Byskip)