Grassroots market – Mehiläisten seura

Kulttuuripolun kesä | Culture Trail’s Summer

581 words, 3 minutes read time.

*Jussi Virkkumaa / Saaren kartanon residenssi*

Saaren kartanon residenssin avoimien ovien päivä | lauantaina 25.5.2024 | klo 11–16
Saaren kartanon alumni, taidekollektiivi Mehiläisten seura on rakentanut Kulttuuripolun näyttelyn Mietoistenlahden rantamaisemaan. Kesätori on Mehiläisten seuran yhteisöllinen tapahtumasarja, jota on järjestetty vuodesta 2021 lähtien, pääosin Tullisaaren kartanopuistossa Helsingin Laajasalossa. Avoimien ovien päivänä toukokuussa 2024 Kesätori saapuu Saaren kartanoon. Tapahtumassa nähdään Mehiläisten seuran aiempia teoksia ja uusia teosaihioita, istutetaan ja kylvetään kesäkukkia sekä rupatellaan puutarhoista, mehiläisistä ja huvimajoista.

Saari Residence open day | Saturday 25 May 2024 | from 11am to 4pm
Saari manor alumni, art collective Bee Company has made the exhibition on the Culture Trail at Mietoistenlahti. Grassroots market is a community event series of Bee Company, which has been organized since 2021, mainly in Tullisaari manor park in Helsinki’s Laajasalo. On the open day in May 2024, Grassroots market will arrive at the Saari manor. At the event, new and previous works of Bee Company will be shown, summer flowers will be planted and sown, and gardens, beehives and gazebos may be discussed.

**Avoimien ovien päivä** | *Jussi Virkkumaa / Saaren kartanon residenssi*

**Elojuhla** | *Jussi Virkkumaa / Saaren kartanon residenssi*

Elojuhla | Lauantaina 24. elokuuta | klo 13–19

Kulttuuripolku 17.15 Maljojen kolmonen

Ina Niemelän, Aino Aksenjan ja Ingvill Fossheimin kesäkuussa 2024 rakentaman paikkasidonnaisen Maljojen kolmonen installaation avajaisseremonia Kulttuuripolulla.

Harvest Party | Saturday 24 August | From 1 pm to 7 pm

Culture Trail 17.15 Three of Bowls

The opening ceremony of the site-specific installation Three of Bowls, built by Ina Niemelä, Aino Aksenja and Ingvill Fossheim in June 2024, will take place on the Culture Trail.

Maljojen kolmonen

2024–

Vuodenkierron mukana elävä, paikkasidonnainen installaatio:

Kierrätetty puumateriaali Saaren kartanon remontista, kartanon alueelta löytyneet kivet ja puu, köysi, purjekangas, mehiläisvaha, ruukut, multa, erilaiset pääosin paikallisesti kasvatetut tai hankitut (kukkivat) kasvit, sää, oleva kasvillisuus ja maa, jolla teos seisoo. Tehty paikan päällä Mehiläisten seuran Ina Niemelän, Aino Aksenjan ja Ingvill Fossheimin toimesta kesäkuussa 2024.

Maljojen kolmonen on jatkoa työskentelyllemme puutarhojen maailmassa; ylistys ystävyydelle, sisaruudelle ja luovalle yhteistyölle. Ryhdyimme rakentamaan huvimajaa, joka prosessin aikana muuttui kaivoksi. Se on piirretty samankokoiseksi kuin sisarensa, huvimaja Tullisaaren kartanopuistossa, jossa pidämme sydänmajaamme. Kaivoa ympäröivä puutarha on versiomme muotopuutarhasta. Kaivo on sijoitettu puutarhaan ilmansuuntien mukaisesti: se avautuu lännessä auringonlaskuun ja sen korkein seinä muodostaa pohjoisnuolen. Vuoden aikana teos muuttuu, mehiläispesästä lainatun kuusikulmion tiukka geometria löystyy sään ja kasvien kasvun mukana, puutarha jatkaa villiintymistään.

Three of Bowls

2024–

Site-specific installation, alive with the yearly cycle:

Recycled wood from the renovation of Saari Manor, found rock and wood material from Saari, rope, sail cloth, beeswax, pots, soil, various (flowering) plants mainly grown & sourced locally, weather, existing vegetation and the earth the work stands upon. Made on site by Ina Niemelä, Aino Aksenja and Ingvill Fossheim of Bee Company in June 2024.

Three of Bowls is a continuation of our work in the world of gardens; a celebration of friendship, sisterhood, and creative collaborations. We set out to build a gazebo that during the process turned into a well. It is drawn to match the size of its sister, a gazebo in Tullisaari Manor Park where we have our heartquarters. The garden surrounding it is our version of a formal garden. The well is positioned by the directions: opening to sunset in the west, its highest wall making a north arrow. During the year the work will transform, the strict geometry of a hexagon borrowed from the beehive loosening with weather and the growth of plants in and around it, the garden growing wilder.

Jussi Virkkumaa / Saaren kartanon residenssi

In Awe of the Summer Market (a Saari journal)

Aino Aksenja

Bee Company lived and worked in Saari Residence for two wonderful weeks in late July 2021. It’s impossible to summarise the residency in a short report, so I have decided to concentrate on two activities from our time at Saari, and how, to me, they’re inextricably linked.

The activities both took place on a Friday. On the 23rd, Marlon held a workshop in the afternoon. We were first guided through an intense meditation, and afterwards read and discussed an article by Summer Allen: How to experience more wow (Psyche, May 12, 2021). In short, the article is about the experience of awe in everyday life, and how it may be increased. Here is one of its key points:

Awe is a complex emotion that tends to arise when you’re in the presence of something vast that you don’t already understand. It heightens your sense of time, makes everyday concerns fall from view, shifts your perspective, and makes you feel more connected with the world and part of a greater whole.

We talked about what makes us feel awe, how common it is in our lives (consensus: more common than the average 2,5 times a week suggested by the article) and the possibilities for our work with the Company to inspire awe in ourselves and others. The discussion took place in warm yellow late-afternoon sunshine in front of Navetta, and afterwards the topic came up in other contexts and the conversation continued through our time in Saari.

The following Friday, the 30th, it was drizzling. We put on our raincoats and cycled to the local summer market in Pyhe, a short bike ride away. The weekly market was full of locally farmed and crafted products: everything from vegetables, seedlings and jams to woollen socks and birdhouses. A local choir made their first appearance since the pandemic started, and it seemed like the whole village and all the summer guests had gathered to listen, to drink coffee and to meet.

While wandering around the stalls and making purchases (spinach, kale, strawberry juice, two metres of liquorice, socks for Ina’s kids, a bee hotel from the birdhouse maker, wolf’s bane plants), Ina and I started talking about how awe-inspiring local markets are to us. I am deeply moved by the care and effort that goes into growing, making and selling all those things, as well as markets as meeting points and creators of community, both in the city (take Hakaniemi market for example) and in the countryside. Small everyday miracles take place in front of us all the time, if we just pause to look.

This experience of awe and the wish to share it was the starting point of our own Laajasalo Grassroots Market, that Ina and I started in spring 2021 as a part of Bee Company in our neighbourhood in Helsinki. We arranged four market days this summer: classic mead and doughnuts on May 1st, a seedling market on World Bee Day, a day off in the garden with the Company on Summer Solstice and a late summer’s flea market with new harvest honey from the prolific Tullisaari bees. The markets have been a great way to get to know more of our neighbours, and to share things we ourselves have grown and made. In short, they have been awesome. The next market will be a Christmas one, come visit us in Laajasalo in December!

Yours,

Bee Company

7.10.2021

Pyheen kesätori, Pyhe summer market Mynämäki, July 2021

Tullisaari Flea Market

We sell the new season Mehiläisten seura honey (300g / 5e, 500g / 8e), vintage clothes and other treasures from Aino’s cupboards.

Niko from Sweep house is coming with hand made brushes and baskets and Anna will be in the park selling coffee from her coffee bike.

Come and sell your used goods, clothes or even harvest delicacies at the Bee Company’s Grassroots market in Tullisaari People’s Park on 15 August 2021 from 11 am to 3 pm.

The fleamarket is open for all and free of charge, but we in Bee Company hope that you inform your intention to come and sell for us in advance by texting +358 407175011.

Anyone can come with their belongings to the park’s grass field to sell, as long as they take the unsold items with them and clean up after themselves. Everyone is responsible for their own belongings and rubbish.
If the parking lot’s rubbish bis are full, please take your rubbish elsewhere!

In the area there are a limited number of parking spaces and we recommend that you come to the park on foot or by bike. Due to the corona pandemic, safe distances petween people should be kept. Arrange your point of sale loosely and definitely stay home if you feel sick. We suggest that sales people wear face masks and protective gloves in close contact sales situations. Download the Mobilepay app on your phone so you can trade without cash.

We follow the guidelines for the prevention of coronavirus infections published by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Department of Health and Welfare on 31 May 2021.

Rules for using the grass field of Tullisaari People’s Park:

1. A maximum of 200 people can be present at the same time.
2. Events must be free of charge and open to all.
3. The noise level should be reasonable. Inform nearby
residents and operators of the potential disruption.
4. In connection with the event, small-scale sales activities are permitted. The sale of alcohol is not allowed.
5. Making an open fire or fire shows is not allowed.
6. Access routes or escape routes must not be blocked.
7. Garbage should be cleaned out in the appropriate containers.
8. Parking is only allowed in official parking spaces.
9. Grass, trees or plantings in the area must not be damaged.
10. The event must not endanger persons,
the environment or property.
11. Make sure there are loose structures such as tents
safe and taken away at the end of the event.
12. Follow the booked event time. Construction and
dismantling is included in the allotted time.
13. Comply with the law of order.
14. The events must be in accordance with Helsinki’s values.
15. The event organizer is always responsible for the event.

If you are interested, please contact us.

Garden life & The Home of Peonies

Magical solstice celebration with bees and their company in the Garden of Puutarhurin mökki, where we’re creating a living garden installation as we speak. We scythed paths, weeded the bed of flowers and drank rhubarb juice with our friend’s and people who live in the park.

Mehiläisten seura made a trip to Taivassalo to The Home of Peonies to buy six carefully selected cultivars for our bed of flowers in Tullisaari. Money for these was made in the previous markets we have had.

Laajasalo grassroots market on World Bee Day

Join us for seedlings and kombucha on Thursday 20th of May at 6 p.m.

Under the willow at the plot 45, close to the parking area in Tullisaari park.

You can pay with cash, mobilepay or with your own seedlings.

List of seedlings for sale:

Tomato ‘Outdoor Girl’, bush tomato growing outside in the open
Courgette ‘Zuboda’
Courgette ‘Goldrush’
Leek ‘Hannibal’
Celery ‘Tall Utah’
Lemon balm Melissa officinalis
Wild sage Salvia nemorosa
Salvia sclarea
Basil Ocimum basilicum ‘Genovese’
Anise hyssop Agastache foeniculum
Oregano Origanum vulgare
Poor man’s orchid Schizanthus pinnatus ‘Angel Wings’
Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Reg Gem’
Tagetes patula ‘Tiger eyes’
Tagetes erecta ‘Smiles’
Sweet pea Lathyrus odoratus

Our seedlings are grown in small domestic spaces in Laajasalo and Roihupelto. They have been lived with and looked after. Seeds are from Hyötykasviyhdistys.

Laajasalo grassroots market, Saturday 1st of May at noon

Welcome to the first grassroots market of Bee Company at the Tullisaari park First of May from 12:00 to 15:00.

We sell homemade mead, vegan doughnuts and straw bales.

You’ll find us close to the parking area in the plot number 45.

Come as you are, bring a face mask and cash. We also accept Mobilepay.

We serve one family or kin group at a time. The doughnuts will be packed uniquely.

Bee Company also collaborates with family members, friends and relatives. Enthusiasm, presence and help that is found close by is appreciated and not taken for granted. These signs were made in a workshop with Ina’s children.

This project started from Aino Aksenja‘s and Ina‘s wish to create some local, communal fun(damental important action) as part of Bee Company.

#mehiläistenseura
#beecompany
#tullisaari
#skr2021