In May 2026, two beehives painted in the colours of border markers were installed on the grounds of the former Kreenholm textile manufacture, directly next to the border between Estonia and Russia. The work functions as a living monument and draws attention to Narva as a border town and to its layered history as both a frontier and an industrial centre in the region.
In a sense, Kreenholm welcomed 7,000 new female workers, who immediately began their work with dedication. The hives are home to thousands of bees that move freely across visible and invisible borders, and travel up to five kilometres in search of pollen.
Narva Art Residency celebrated the end of the summer season on 19 September with its first honey tasting. The event brought together a conversation about the life of bees in the context of the border and a tasting of canapés made with Russian cheese (Vene juust) and Estonian rye bread (by Eesti Pagar), served with freshly harvested honey.
The author of the installation «Piirimesi» (“Honey from the border”) is NART’s coordinator Gleb Kuznetsov.
“This artwork unexpectedly accumulated many layers of which I was not even thinking of from the beginning. It can be an illustration of daily border crossing routine and relatedness of border concept in general. You also can think of historical parallels, like a quote from Juhan Liiv poem on Maarjamae memorial, or political ones – did you know that certain male bees called drones in English?
During the summer bees from one of the beehives were aggressively attacking passing by people because of the low level of honey. Those bees were trying to change the queen. That attempt was prevented and those bees continued to live in what we can call stability.”
The installation opening took place in the spring (on 9 May 2026) during the “S–ilma–piir–itu” seminar, which brought together artists whose practices engage with nature and borders. The seminar was hosted by the Narva Art Residency and curated by Estonian artist and designer Riina Õun. It was part of the Copenhagen-based Metropolis residency project “Performing Landscapes Nordic/Baltic Network.”