Sarah | Mahurangi West

“So, I’m Sarah, I’m an artist and the vision-holder of For the Love of Bees, and I live in Mahurangi West which is above Orewa, just past Puhoi. So, as an artist, I’ve been given an incredible opportunity through funding through the Auckland Design office, to facilitate a project over the last three years called For the Love of Bees in the inner-city of Auckland.

Which uses the bee as a focal point for people learning how to create regenerative systems, in inner-city. So, that includes organic growing practices, and we have, in the last year, a really amazing project is at OMG at the top of Symonds Street, where we have demonstrated on 700 square metres how it is possible to grow to feed the planet at a commercial scale in ways that are safe for bees but are also climate change-ready infrastructure. And as a result of the visibility of that project, we’ve been able to launch other projects around the city. In the viaduct last week, we just launched the first-ever local living compost hub on concrete. So, it’s not on the ground, in the viaduct, and actually, I’m here today because we are about to do maintenance. Our contract for doing the maintenance on the High Street planters has just come through. So, what’s amazing about that project is that it’s a way for everyone to join in. We have created multiple jobs for particularly young people and people who want to make a difference, and what would I like to see happen next year? I’d really like to see Council, Government and businesses support projects like ours so that we can actually roll out this climate change-ready infrastructure, developing local jobs for people that actually give them a really meaningful way to contribute to two of the most pressing issues that people feel are present at the moment, which is definitely climate change, but also biodiversity loss, while also attending to issues like food security, and other things. Social cohesion and a sense of optimism. 

So I grew up pretty much around the North Island. I was born in Wellington, but I spent formative of my youth in places like Kaeo and Waipu, but primarily as an adult, I’ve lived here in Auckland. I started my career as an actress in films and television and in the early 1990s I moved to Australia and began my art career. So, a major transition there. I have been able to use my practice and the work that I do to look at wellbeing and healing. So, that’s really my primary function, it’s the underlying thing that drives my art practice, which includes For the Love of Bees. It’s looking at what systems can we develop that enable people to heal, enable environments to heal, and beyond healing, how can we come back to an integrated sense of self both as communities, where we’re not polarised, where we don’t react to things. We co-create things. So, that’s very much a driving part of who I am, and what I do.”