The Honey Window

The Honey Window (2023)

Elm wood, glass, honey

200 million years ago the earth was covered in green plants. It wasn’t until about 100 million years ago that flowers started to flourish in all shapes and sizes and colours. At that point flowers were being pollinated by beetles, and later wasps, who are the ancestors of the honey bee. Unlike the wasps, honey bees are vegetarian and created complex social structures, ruled by a Queen Bee that kept peaceful order over communities of up to 50,000. Unlike the wasps, this community could survive the winter months thanks to the good work they had achieved during the flowering season. Man has been fortunate to live alongside bees since their much later appearance on this earth.

We associate gold with warmth and richness. The blessing of honey has been held sacred throughout all religions and folklore. Bees were the symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt, and bees have come to represent community, continuance, regeneration and connection to the other world of our ancestors. As a source of honey, they represent sweetness, healing and magic. There are cave paintings of bees dating back to 13.000 BC. The shape of the window casts a circular golden shadow on the floor. The Egyptian sun god Ra cried tears that turned into bees, that then created honey in the world. Sharing food brings communities together and creates intergenerational links. In a whole lifetime of a bee, it produces one teaspoon of honey. Daudy invites us to consider that we could all be citizens working together. Bees look after one another constantly and unconditionally. There is a poem by Persian poet Hafiz, The Sun Never Says

Even after all this time

The Sun never says to the Earth

“You owe me”

Look what happens with a love like that

It lights the whole sky. The Honey Window will provide the viewer with a formal measure of time and temperature as the honey crystallises and melts within its perfectly sealed two pieces of glass. Reflecting the impermanent nature of our existence, the honey window will be constantly changing and evolving.

The frame is made in wood from a fallen elm tree in a London Park, whilst the honey is sourced from an ethical supplier in the Morvan.

Kate Daudy’s work celebrates the joy of human connection and unwavering faith in its potential. Based in London, Daudy works through a variety of media to manifest complex ideas and theories about the universe. She believes in the power of art to translate into visual form emotions and ideas recognisable yet unrealised in everyday life.

Daudy began to explore these questions using a practice inspired by ancient Chinese literati tradition. Her bas relief works represented the chronic impermanence of humanity and fleeting emotions. Installations included city-wide projects in Manchester, New York, and Jordan. The interaction between text and place was also explored by Daudy through a commissioned map of London she produced for Selfridges in 2017.

Learn more about Kate Daudy