Palynopolis

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Palynopolis

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Hospitality + Sport ›

Palynopolis
is a proposal for a study on an urban scale examining how
biodiversity and self-sufficiency can act
as catalysts for urban development. An installation built in Vaterland could
demonstrate how these ideas could generate a tool to deal with not only
biodiversity but also social diversity. We believe that the river valley that
runs through Oslo can serve as an infrastructure for self-sufficiency and
social change. Democracy, or democratic space, means the opportunity to take
part and is the main theme of the project.

The urban study will examine a range of programs that fit into the
theme of biodiversity, urban food production and gardening. We believe that the
Aker River and its surrounding areas are interesting as an already established
infrastructure that might be developed into a true catalyst of change. The
study will be centered on the river. We will examine the existing biodiversity
and identify elements that are threatened and elements that can be developed
further. We will demonstrate how new infrastructures can be developed to
support biodiversity in the city. Finally, we will discuss and explorehow
biodiversity, small-scale urban gardening and food production could contribute
to a new layer of urban development centered on the riverbanks.

The Vaterland Apiary will be a community-based apiary that allows for production
of honey and other bee products. Bees are important pollinators in the urban
environment. In conjunction with the apiary we will therefore also create a
garden where it’s possible to bring flowers and other plants for pollination.
The apiary with its garden will function as a focal point of floral sexuality.
At the same time the installation has a strong social agenda as it will be possible
for the public to take part in the honey production and to learn more about
bees, which are highly sophisticated social organisms. It also has strong
metaphorical possibilities connected to themes such as reproduction, fear and
wealth.

Bees are an important
part of urban gardening and agriculture. The background for our proposed
installation is the global decline in bee populations which scientifically is
denoted as the colony collapse disorder. Small-scale urban beekeeping could
help raise the public awareness about this phenomenon and at the same time
stimulate to a renewed interest in bee keeping.

The apiary combines the ideas of biodiversity and
self-sufficiency with ideas of social change and a participatory democratic
urban space. The Vaterland Park, despite its obvious qualities with a location
close to the river, is now a gathering place for a mix of drug users and
dealers, and is also home to a population of Rumanian short-term visitors. In addition
the park is a route between the railway station and the Grønland area.

We think that the
Vaterland Park makes apparent some of the great challenges to our democracy. By
that we mean that the people who are present in the park represent the
contrasts and the diversity of our society. How to deal with these differences
and inequalities is a main challenge of the social democratic societies in a
modern globalised world. If we are not capable of dealing with heterogeneity we
are possibly not democracies at all, but what the Danish author Carsten Jensen
calls dictatorships of the comfortable, without any other response to the
different and uncomfortable than forced exile and urban displacement.

We believe that the Vaterland
apiary can provide a unique opportunity for exchange between the displaced and
the urban middle classes. The apiary combines small-scale food production,
which have typically been more important to the poor, with the current
obsession on gardening among the urban middle classes.

Urban Apiculture can have an educational purpose. The apiary may help teach the
public more about honeybees and how these organisms are commercially and
culturally important to the human society. We envisage a system similar to that
of allotment gardens, where one will need to apply to set up private beehives,
and where. All special tools that are needed will be available in the
apiary. A training system will have
to be established, and could at the same time provide valuable contact between
the public and bee specialists. The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) at Ås gives comprehensive
courses in bee keeping. Local beekeepers’ associations offer smaller shorter
courses.

Honey from urban bees is
known for its rich taste. Bees are pollinators and a combination of suited
plants such as raspberries, fruit trees and other types of flowers in the vicinity
of the apiary may help increase the honey production. Bees normally fly about
800 kilometers before they die. They can travel up to 3-5 kilometers away from
the hive to collect pollen, nectar and water, which they bring back to the
hive. They travel several trips per day. How long they fly depend on the
availability of plants in the area. Scout bees fly from the colony in search of
pollen and nectar. If successful in finding good supplies of food, the scouts
return to the colony and "dances" on the honeycomb to tell the other
worker bees where to go. One beehive might produce as much as 40 kg per year,
bees also produce substantial amounts of pollen and propolis that, in the same
way as honey, can be sold commercially. We plan to introduce either Carnolian
honeybees (lat. Apis mellifera carnica Pollman), European dark bees (Apis
mellifera mellifera) or
Buckfast bees ( Apis mellifera hybrid bees) which are three common bee types
used by beekeepers in Norway.

Equipment might be loaned or
rented in the park. Minimum requirements for equipment are; bee suit, gloves,
hive boxes, queen excluders, bee smoker, hive tool, frames etc. There could
also bee also be a need for an incubator and other equipment to breed queen
bees, but queens may alternatively be purchased from local beekeepers.