At their San Antonio stop at Galería. E.V.A., the Beehive Collective unrolls a veritable masterclass in coal power, globalization, and the infinite creative power of people’s resistance.
Greg Harman
This month opened with a banger of a presentation at Galeria E.V.A. when the Beehive Collective, the renowned arts and storytelling project now touring the world arrived in San Antonio. They unfurled massive hand-illustrated banners telling big stories. Like how about the essential story of coal in under seven minutes? We’re talking from the peat bogs pressed through geologic time, to colonization and forced removal of Native peoples, to courageous worker organizing in Appalachia, to the blowing off of mountain tops, to the roots of the opioid epidemic, all the way to the final (future/coming) recovery and restoration of just relationships with the land and one another. (Whew!) Above ‘Dee Bee’ and ‘Saku Bee’ deliver a veritable masterclass, as presented at Galería E.V.A. in San Antonio, Texas, on August 1, 2024.
Next up was Mesoamérica Resiste, a mural that started with six months of research traveling Mexico, Central America, and South America, to understand the issues of globalization and forms of resistance that emerged in response. Here ‘Saku Bee’ breaks down the project while explaining key ideas behind the Seven Principles of Zapatismo, including an invitation to “exercise power, but not take power.” While some advocate a unified revolutionary response to oppressive forces, Saku reminds here that:
“It’s in diversity that we find strength and it’s in diversity that we are going to find solutions to issues that we face, including climate change. One ‘no,’ many yeses. That’s a principle of the Zapatistas.”
Also displayed as the possibilities of alternative economies built upon ideas like mutuality. With 70 species of ants and 400 species of animals represented in the 16-foot hand illustrated banner, viewers encounter the Zapatistas and their Seven Principles of Organizing an well as concepts like composting, permaculture, paper making, and habitat restoration.
“It’s a beautiful illustration of what it is to make a solidarity economy,” Saku Bee says. “Because these pollinators know if they are creating a healthy environment for other pollinators than that’s going make a healthier environment for them to live in as well. If only we had such a view toward from poverty or homelessness. Knowing that when there is suffering in our community that it’s our whole community that’s suffering.”
You can watch the full livestream of the event on my personal Facebook page, thanks to Brian Gordon’s assistance. See Part One, Part Two, & Part Three.
