Biography
Oliver Maxwell is a British-born beekeeper who has called Copenhagen home for nearly two decades. He runs Bybi (Danish for ‘City Bee’), a project that hosts honey bees on rooftops across the city and partners with schools, social projects, businesses, artists and community groups.
How did you “break out of beige”?
When I first moved to Denmark, I was offered a great job as a business consultant. I turned it down. Which was quite bold, since Denmark can be a tough place to be a foreigner.
Most people here tend to stay in their lane, but I couldn’t bear the idea of going along with that. I want to talk to people with interesting stories – outside of the bubble of Danish-niceness, that can feel quite excluding and oppressive to outsiders.
For me, beekeeping in the city is a kind of superpower: it reveals the nooks and crannies that make Copenhagen colourful, diverse and complicated.
To many of us, you are the opposite of beige, especially because of your line of work. How did you “get into” bees and urban beekeeping?
I’m lucky to have had the freedom to make choices about my life and to have met people who are really different from me. I’ve always been interested in people, animals, and all the different ways we live together. So I decided to become an urban beekeeper.
What I love about it is that every single problem that we have as a society, from climate change and homelessness to immigration and war, shows up among the bees at some point.
My philosophy is that we humans have to believe that we have the potential to do good for the living world. If we believe that then really our fundamental responsibility is to activate that potential in each other, ourselves and the animals and plants around us.
Do you see any similarities in bees and humans? Do you think bees ‘break out of beige’ too?
Bees have never been beige! Only our perception of them. They are extraordinary creatures, incredibly sensual. Their world is of colours we can only imagine. They smell in stereo, and listen with all six feet.
Bees and people have a lot in common: Bees are intelligent. They dream, they count, they play. They express ‘joy’ and ‘trauma’. Bees are democratic. Bees communicate, not just with each other, but also with other insects and flowers in a language of touch, smell, taste, colour and movement.
The idea that bees are ‘hard workers’ is nonsense! All that business with pollination and honey - it’s not work. It’s sex. It’s desire, curiosity and mutual pleasure. I think bees and flowers actually care for each other too.
Since beekeeping is quite a bit out of our realm. What would you say is the key driving force for you and your organization? Is it honey?
I don’t work with bees to make honey, but to create urban communities that are more than just about people.
Honey is itself a currency that connects us. Share it with the ones you care for. Plant flowers to thank the bees. In this way, connections grow between people, plants and animals right across the city.
What’s something people consistently misunderstand about bees, and why?
Everyone knows that bees have a queen and workers. They think the queen is the boss. It’s not true. Bees are democratic and hold big discussions about their collective needs by dancing.
Having a boss is a very strange human idea, but maybe seeing that structure in other species helps human bosses to justify the way they treat their workers - and workers accept the way they get treated by their bosses.
Let’s go back to your childhood for a moment. What did you dream of becoming as a kid, and how does that compare to who you are today?
I wanted to be an inventor. I dreamed about making an invisibility potion, flying shoes and a robot dog that could shoot lasers out of its eyes.
I didn’t get very far with any of that, but I like to think that what we are doing in Bybi is all about inventing and re-inventing ways of being together. That can be playful too. What’s the point if we can’t have fun?
And what piece of advice would you tell a young Oliver?
I wasn’t very good at taking advice when I was young. I think the young me would tell the old me to mind my own business.
Watch the vid
Watch our FREAK BEIGE OUT campaign video below.
Credits
Photographer: Jasko Bobar
Stylist & Casting: Matija Max Vidovich
MUA: Loïs Zaina
Ai videos: Sally Trier
Creative direction: OMHU Inhouse Creative Agency