This weekend (30th – 31st March 11am – 3pm) Chelmsford launches its first Artist in Residence as part of Essex Book Festival, in partnership with Meadows Shopping Centre and Chelmsford City Council and funding from Arts Council England.

Working with computer scientist Karun Matharu, musician and composer Tom Moore, and molecular scientist Dr Eyal Maori, UK-based international sound artist and bee-keeper Lily Hunter Green. will recreate the devastating world of a honeybee hive under attack from a catastrophic virus that attacks the colony during periods of confinement.

Provided with specially designed wearable technology, audience members will experience a digital audio virus spread through the performance space, themselves potential transmitters and victims as they interact with one another, thus mimicking the mechanisms of contagion.

Lily explains….

I started working with bees in 2014. It all began with a solitary bee flying into my piano as I was playing in my family home in Suffolk. This quickly turned into my installation BEE COMPOSED that involved converting a piano into a beehive, and which formed part of SNAP 2014 Art Exhibition at Snape Maltings in Suffolk.

Thanks to an artist residency hosted by Aldeburgh Music that involved working with contemporary dance company Neon Dance and composer Tom Moore, BEE COMPOSED subsequently evolved in to a live performance BEE COMPOSED LIVE. Since then it has metamorphosed into a series of separate but interrelated performances/installations under the collective heading of BEE COMPOSED LIVE.

SILENCING THE VIRUS is its latest and most ambitious iteration to date. All thanks to my fantastic collective network of unlikely collaborators, who, like me, are committed to raising awareness of global threats to the bees. What started as a solitary bee and piano has evolved into a complex, collaborative, multi-discipline, and dynamic exploration of the plight of the bee, and with that to, the mankind.

The Show is open sboth Saturday and Sunday in Meadows Shopping CentreUnit 5 (next to Warren James/opposite the Sky TV stand), 42-47 High St, Chelmsford, Essex  CM2 6FD.