Beehive Jesus
Wed, June 23, 2010 
Dutch designer Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny of Studio Libertiny presented this sculpture at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London. Titled the Unbearable Lightness, the four-foot-tall beehive sculpture is housed in a glass cube. Below the cube hangs a cabinet where the worker bees gain access to the sculpture.
Over the course of the fair, 40,000 worker bees were released into the case to complete
a wax honeycomb structure over the figure of a martyred christ rising out of the chaos,
his weight seeming to be upheld by the mass strength of the swarm. The figure within the vitrine
is made of a laser sintered framework in which the industrious bees created a honeycomb skin over before filling each cell with the honey they produce. Then bees worked to remove the honey
from the cells and return it to the beehive, cleaning the figure back to the wax cells they
originally created. Tomáš made the honeycomb a red-orange color to symbolize the cross.
Click the jump for more images and a video of the sculpture.