Bee Company: HIVE

Galleria Salmi, Laajasalo library. The gallery is open according to the opening hours of the Laajasalo Library.

🌼 3-30 January 2023

Welcome to our opening on January 3, 6-8 pm.

Bee Company’s exhibition at Laajasalo library celebrates the Company’s three-year anniversary in Tullisaari park. In 2019, Tullisaari shifted from the era of trade advisor Borgström to the Age of Bees, when artists Aino Aksenja and Ina Niemelä assigned it to flowers and bees. Since then, they have served this sweet union with their art.

Aino and Ina have made the works in the exhibition in the meantime between work, studying and family life. The artworks were born of the joy and pleasure of making things with your hands, as well as the desire to be in and take care of the garden together – to cherish friendship and find time for creativity. In their work, Bee Company combines handicraft, gardening and contemporary art. For them, handicrafts reflect attitude, patience, strength and tenderness towards fellow beings, in circumstances where freedom to live a life of one’s own must be found in the midst of community and care. Life in art and gardening is passionate, pulsating, repetitive; full of disappointments and breathtaking beauty. The pleasure it gives springs from slowness, manual labor and fingers in soil. The apparent lightness and mundanity of the works is a sleight of hand.

📣Bee Company’s five-point manifesto for Laajasalo’s future:

  1. Laajasalo’s nature areas are preserved or expanded, and animal transition routes between green areas are increased.
  2. Parks are opened to city dwellers and garden enthusiasts as places where you can participate in planning, tending and harvesting. Parks become common gardens and meeting places for the citizens.
  3. More perennial urban farming areas will be established and proper water supply will be arranged for them by the city. Farming and gardening are seen as important alongside other hobby opportunities and recreational activities. Urban farming activities are developed and farmers are supported in the activity and in its self-directed organization.
  4. A service center for Laajasalo residents will be built in Tullisaari park, which will include barrier-free toilets, a water point, a break room, a garden shed and a workshop.
  5. Bee Company demands cheaper public transport in exchange for the suffering caused by the bridge construction on the island.

The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, City of Helsinki and Finnish Oistat-centre have supported our work.

Thank you for all our supporters and friends, especially Catharina, Liisu and Henri ❤️

Birundan

🕰 lördag 3.9.2022 kl 11-17 och söndag 4.9.2022 kl 11-17

📍 På Degerö, i Turholmens park, i trädgården av Trädgårdsmästarens stuga, ljust hus på backen i norra delen av parken

Birundan är ett mångsinnligt evenemang för hela familjen. Keramikkonstnär Catharina Kajander, bildkonstnär Aino Aksenja samt Turholmens biodlare och ljuskonstnär Ina Niemelä bjuder in dig i trädgården. Med oss också multikonstnär-musiker Noora Kauppila, Bins sällskap och sångare-låtskrivare Nightbird. Birundan är en del av Konstrundan-helgen, där konstnärer runtom i Finland öppnar sina ateljéer för publiken.

Vi är på plats, vår konst är på plats, kom du med!

Båda dagarna:

Turholms vilohem – Aino Aksenjas installation

Turholms campingplats – Ina Niemeläs ljusverk

Kritiskt utrotningshotade arter – del av verk Catharina Kajander är med

Sanctuary – Aksenjas och Niemeläs levande trädgårdsinstallation

Nostatus – Noora Kauppilas ljudverk

HO.5 Turholmsparken – Matt Parkers verk

Våffelkafé och honungskiosk!

Lerverkstad för barn.

Lördag:

Sångare-låtskrivare Nightbird (Anna-Stina Jungerstam) uppträder ca kl 15

❗️Tillgänglighet: Evenemanget är kostnadsfritt och passar alla intresserade. Parken är inte fullt tillgänglig. Det finns en gångväg i god skick till Trädgårdsmästarens stuga, men terrängen är backig och vägen i grus. Parkens parkeringsplatser finns på gångavstånd till trädgården och de är begränsade. Vi rekommenderar att komma till fots, på cykel eller med kollektivtrafik. I parken finns sommartoalett på den sydliga parkeringsplatsen. Evenemanget äger rum utomhus så klä dig enligt det.

Birundan har fått stöd från Svenska kulturfonden och Helsingfors stad.

Tullisaari Flea Market

We sell the new season Mehiläisten seura honey (300g / 5e, 500g / 8e), vintage clothes and other treasures from Aino’s cupboards.

Niko from Sweep house is coming with hand made brushes and baskets and Anna will be in the park selling coffee from her coffee bike.

Come and sell your used goods, clothes or even harvest delicacies at the Bee Company’s Grassroots market in Tullisaari People’s Park on 15 August 2021 from 11 am to 3 pm.

The fleamarket is open for all and free of charge, but we in Bee Company hope that you inform your intention to come and sell for us in advance by texting +358 407175011.

Anyone can come with their belongings to the park’s grass field to sell, as long as they take the unsold items with them and clean up after themselves. Everyone is responsible for their own belongings and rubbish. 
If the parking lot’s rubbish bis are full, please take your rubbish elsewhere!

In the area there are a limited number of parking spaces and we recommend that you come to the park on foot or by bike. Due to the corona pandemic, safe distances petween people should be kept. Arrange your point of sale loosely and definitely stay home if you feel sick. We suggest that sales people wear face masks and protective gloves in close contact sales situations. Download the Mobilepay app on your phone so you can trade without cash.

We follow the guidelines for the prevention of coronavirus infections published by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Department of Health and Welfare on 31 May 2021.


Rules for using the grass field of Tullisaari People’s Park:

1. A maximum of 200 people can be present at the same time.
2. Events must be free of charge and open to all.
3. The noise level should be reasonable. Inform nearby
residents and operators of the potential disruption.
4. In connection with the event, small-scale sales activities are permitted. The sale of alcohol is not allowed.
5. Making an open fire or fire shows is not allowed.
6. Access routes or escape routes must not be blocked.
7. Garbage should be cleaned out in the appropriate containers.
8. Parking is only allowed in official parking spaces.
9. Grass, trees or plantings in the area must not be damaged.
10. The event must not endanger persons,
the environment or property.
11. Make sure there are loose structures such as tents
safe and taken away at the end of the event.
12. Follow the booked event time. Construction and
dismantling is included in the allotted time.
13. Comply with the law of order.
14. The events must be in accordance with Helsinki’s values.
15. The event organizer is always responsible for the event.

If you are interested, please contact us.

Garden life & The Home of Peonies

Magical solstice celebration with bees and their company in the Garden of Puutarhurin mökki, where we’re creating a living garden installation as we speak. We scythed paths, weeded the bed of flowers and drank rhubarb juice with our friend’s and people who live in the park.

Mehiläisten seura made a trip to Taivassalo to The Home of Peonies to buy six carefully selected cultivars for our bed of flowers in Tullisaari. Money for these was made in the previous markets we have had.

Bartzella. Photo Aino Aksenja.

Laajasalo grassroots market on World Bee Day

Join us for seedlings and kombucha on Thursday 20th of May at 6 p.m.

Under the willow at the plot 45, close to the parking area in Tullisaari park.

You can pay with cash, mobilepay or with your own seedlings.

List of seedlings for sale:

  • Tomato ‘Outdoor Girl’, bush tomato growing outside in the open
  • Courgette ‘Zuboda’
  • Courgette ‘Goldrush’
  • Leek ‘Hannibal’
  • Celery ‘Tall Utah’
  • Lemon balm Melissa officinalis
  • Wild sage Salvia nemorosa
  • Salvia sclarea
  • Basil Ocimum basilicum ‘Genovese’
  • Anise hyssop Agastache foeniculum
  • Oregano Origanum vulgare
  • Poor man’s orchid Schizanthus pinnatus ‘Angel Wings’
  • Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Reg Gem’
  • Tagetes patula ‘Tiger eyes’
  • Tagetes erecta ‘Smiles’
  • Sweet pea Lathyrus odoratus

Our seedlings are grown in small domestic spaces in Laajasalo and Roihupelto. They have been lived with and looked after. Seeds are from Hyötykasviyhdistys.

Laajasalo grassroots market, Saturday 1st of May at noon

Welcome to the first grassroots market of Bee Company at the Tullisaari park First of May from 12:00 to 15:00.

We sell homemade mead, vegan doughnuts and straw bales.

You’ll find us close to the parking area in the plot number 45.

Come as you are, bring a face mask and cash. We also accept Mobilepay.

We serve one family or kin group at a time. The doughnuts will be packed uniquely.

Bee Company also collaborates with family members, friends and relatives. Enthusiasm, presence and help that is found close by is appreciated and not taken for granted. These signs were made in a workshop with Ina’s children.

This project started from Aino Aksenja‘s and Ina‘s wish to create some local, communal fun(damental important action) as part of Bee Company.

#mehiläistenseura
#beecompany
#tullisaari
#skr2021

#SKR2021

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Paavo-Koskinen.jpg
Photo: National archives of Finland

The Finnish Cultural Foundation has awarded a generous grant for Mehiläisten seura for starting its work in Laajasalo.

Grant was awarded from the Paavo Koskinen fund that was founded on the testament of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery Paavo Ilmari Koskinen in 1969.