the singing of the drones

The Singing of The Drones

curator: Hadassa Cohen
2020

The The title of the exhibition, The singing of the Drones, is derived from the title of an ongoing multidisciplinary artistic project initiated by the artist Liat Danieli. The complexity of the project required collaborations with various professionals, including a beekeeper, a string instrument maker and a musician. The exhibition was installed in two locations: on the roof of the Alfred Institute building and in the gallery space.

The exhibition draws inspiration from the bees’ unique system of gathering acute knowledge through their senses and handing it down to their future generations. The visitors are invited to wander, listen to the sounds and savor the scents. The singing of the Drones is an expression of identity, an entity that emerges from the sitar hive and fills the interior of the gallery with its secrets.

On the roof of the Alfred Institute building, a sitar with an enlarged resonance box is located in the heart of a garden that was sown and planted specifically for the bees. In the blooming section of the garden, there is a swarming and an independent living system, surrounded by the buildings of South Tel Aviv and the construction site of the new train rail. As the bees leave their hive to collect nectar from the surrounding flowers, their wings fret lightly on the sitar’s strings.

In addition, Danieli created a multidisciplinary installation in the gallery space that simulates the interior of a hive. The beehive rhythm will resonate in the gallery space, immersing it with the humming of the bees and the sitar’s tunes. Installed at the entrance of the gallery is a structure made of dried cellulose bacterial sheets where the visitors can linger. Installed in the center of the gallery space is a dense corridor-like structure, made of wood frames and beeswax, on which strings are stretched.

The ambitious project was designed with the assistance of Yossi Aud, a beekeeper who teaches the biodynamic method. The construction of the sitar was done in collaboration with the string instrument maker Gideon Weigert. The Sound work in the gallery was created with collaboration with sound artist Hagai Eisenberg.