Unfoundations
A slow unfolding of clay, bees, and human touch.
This project began with a handful of wild clay and a question: what happens when we stop trying to control nature and start listening instead? Rooted in my beekeeping practice, Unfoundations explores the quiet, complicated space between care and control.
Unfoundations is a project rooted in my experience as both a beekeeper and an artist. It began with a simple gesture - pressing wild clay, dug from my land, into the frames of old beehives. At first, I tried to imprint the wax pattern of honeycomb into the clay, thinking it would honour the bees' labour. But it quickly felt false. Clumsy. Human. I realised I was trying to mimic something I didn’t fully understand.
Many beekeepers use sheets of artificial foundation to encourage bees to build faster. These sheets are made of thin wax and stamped with perfect hexagons. The idea is that the bees won’t need to use their own energy or honey to make wax, which is incredibly labour-intensive for them. For every pound of wax they produce, they consume around 6 to 8 pounds of honey.
It sounds like a helpful shortcut - but the cells imprinted onto this fake foundation are often the wrong size. They're slightly larger than what bees would build naturally. That small change can cause problems. One of the most serious is with varroa mites - tiny parasites that breed inside brood cells while young bees are growing. The larger artificial cells give these mites more room to reproduce and feed, weakening entire colonies.
Learning this really shifted how I thought about human intervention in nature. It made me think more deeply about the ways we try to manage, control or improve natural systems, and the unintended consequences that follow. It also made me reflect on our relationship with livestock in agriculture more broadly. Are we really exploring what’s best for the bees? Is this for their greater good - or for ours?
In this project, I began smoothing away the comb patterns and letting my fingerprints remain instead. They started as accidental marks, but became a quiet kind of offering - not an imitation, but a presence. A way of saying: I’m here, I’m fallible, I don’t have all the answers.
I left the clay out to dry in the sun. Cracks formed, reminding me of how fragile control really is. I plan to mend them with beeswax, not to hide the damage, but to hold it. A bit like kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing pottery with gold, where the cracks become part of the story.
Unfoundations is still unfolding. It’s a slow, seasonal process shaped by land, gesture and the unseen consequences of human touch.
Are we really exploring what’s best for the bees?
Is this for their greater good - or for ours?
Materials & Methods
- Wild clay (hand-dug from croft land)
- Reclaimed beehive frames
- Raw beeswax comb
- Solar exposure & weather drying
- Hand imprints
- Future: beeswax repairs inspired by kintsugi
Unfoundations is still in process. It’s a seasonal, material-led journey, shaped by land, gesture and the quiet lessons bees continue to teach me. In future stages, I’ll be mending the cracked clay with beeswax - not to hide the breaks, but to hold them.
