Talk:
The Ministry of Bees
Apian
Salt Beyoğlu
July 26, 2025 15.00
![Apian 07 Institut für Bienenkunde Celle’de (Almanya) bulunan bir <i>Bannkorb</i> [büyü bağlayıcı kovan]
Fotoğraf: Apian (Aladin Borioli)](/directus/media/thumbnails/apian_07-jpg-780-5000-false.jpg)
A Bannkorb [spellbinding hive] at the Institut für Bienenkunde Celle, Germany
Photo: Apian (Aladin Borioli)
Photo: Apian (Aladin Borioli)
Walk-in Cinema
Apian – The Ministry of Bees is an artistic research platform dedicated to the relationship between humans and bee species. Combining methods from anthropology, art, and beekeeping, it produces multimodal knowledge about this age-old relationship.
In this talk, Apian will present outcomes of their research in the form of “polymorphous ethnographies”—fragments that combine various media, including text, photography, sound, and video. Together, these materials form a narrative universe that reflects on the future of human-bee relations—one that is free from extractive practices and rooted in ancestral approaches.
Organized as part of Lives of Animals at Salt Beyoğlu and with the support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this free-admission talk is open to everyone. The talk will be held in English with simultaneous translation to Turkish.
Aladin Borioli is an artist and anthropologist whose practice explores human-bee relationships through artistic and anthropological inquiry. With a background in graphic design, photography, visual anthropology, and philosophy, Borioli initiated Apian – The Ministry of Bees in 2014, a long-term project developed in response to the perceived failure of political institutions. The name “apian,” borrowed from Juan Antonio Ramírez’s book The Beehive Metaphor (2000), denotes anything related to bees—from architecture to behavior—defined as broadly as one’s imagination allows.
Apian – The Ministry of Bees is an artistic research platform dedicated to the relationship between humans and bee species. Combining methods from anthropology, art, and beekeeping, it produces multimodal knowledge about this age-old relationship.
In this talk, Apian will present outcomes of their research in the form of “polymorphous ethnographies”—fragments that combine various media, including text, photography, sound, and video. Together, these materials form a narrative universe that reflects on the future of human-bee relations—one that is free from extractive practices and rooted in ancestral approaches.
Organized as part of Lives of Animals at Salt Beyoğlu and with the support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this free-admission talk is open to everyone. The talk will be held in English with simultaneous translation to Turkish.
Aladin Borioli is an artist and anthropologist whose practice explores human-bee relationships through artistic and anthropological inquiry. With a background in graphic design, photography, visual anthropology, and philosophy, Borioli initiated Apian – The Ministry of Bees in 2014, a long-term project developed in response to the perceived failure of political institutions. The name “apian,” borrowed from Juan Antonio Ramírez’s book The Beehive Metaphor (2000), denotes anything related to bees—from architecture to behavior—defined as broadly as one’s imagination allows.
