A swarm of bees with their distinctive stripes form a striking, swirling mass. However, as you get closer, you realise the bees aren’t quite what they seem. Each bee is actually a children’s origami fortune-teller. The fortune-teller is a simple game played across the world that everyone remembers from their childhood. The fortune-teller shape represents how we’re holding our children’s future in our hands and we have to make the right choices.
Swarm is made from over 2,000 screen printed origami bees and is a metaphor for people coming together to create positive change.
Leonie created Swarm in response to a residency at the University of Bristol’s School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience where researchers were investing the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides on the circadian rhythm of bumble bees. The pesticides distorted the bees’ body clocks, making them forage at the wrong times of the day when pollen and nectar counts are low (plants also have a circadian rhythm).
Swarm was commissioned for the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair via the Climate Art Installation Award in 2022.
Swarm (2022) Screenprint, paper, wire, steel, wood, paint, dimensions variable
Image credits: Installation image: The Future is Today: Prints and the University of Warwick, 1965 to Now, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Jan – Mar 2025. Photo: Luke Pickering
