Inside the Hive

A young person working on a large white cardboard structure — *Be at the Hive*, designed by Noa Haim of Collective Paper Aesthetics, for and with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, photo: Aldwin van Krimpen

International architect and designer Noa Haim has got the Art Gallery buzzing with activities for the young and the young at heart.

Noa Haim is from Collective Paper Aesthetics, a creative studio based in Rotterdam in The Netherlands that has worked with art galleries around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Mudam in Luxembourg, National Gallery Singapore, and Tate Modern in London.

For the Art Gallery of New South Wales, she has created a series of making activities, inspired by shapes created by native bees in their hives and what different pollens look like under a microscope.

The activities are suitable for the whole family to enjoy, and they are all free!

At-home activity sheet

You can download the free activity sheet to do at home anytime you like.

There are instructions on the sheet, and you can watch our time-lapse video below to see how to cut out and glue the shape.

Don’t forget to decorate your shape before you join it together. This is an activity inspired by nature, so you may like to use patterns and words to help make others aware of the beauty of our environment and how we need to look after it.

You can also join individual shapes together to form a kind of beehive.

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A hive of activity

During the school holidays in January 2024, you can drop into a kids workshop at the Art Gallery to take part in a similar activity.

We call it A hive of activity, and we’ll provide all the materials and the instructions, and no scissors are needed as the shapes pop out of the card.

You’ll be able to join your shapes to many others to form interconnected structures that will slowly grow in our Learning Studio throughout the month.

Find out more about A hive of activity and our school holiday programs

A child concentrates on placing a cut-out piece of paper on a stack of large cardboard prisms.

Workshop participants at ‘Be at the Hive’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Two adults and two children sitting on a carpet circle. They are folding cardboard into triangular prisms.

Workshop participants at ‘Be at the Hive’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

A baby smiling and sitting between two cardboard constructions.

Workshop participants at ‘Be at the Hive’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Two adults and a toddler working together to fold a cardboard prism.

Workshop participants at ‘Be at the Hive’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Be at the Hive

For the Hive Festival at the Art Gallery on 13 and 14 January 2024, we get even bigger!

During this two-day festival for kids and families, visitors of all ages can contribute to building large-scale immersive structures in a drop-in workshop titled Be at the Hive. It’s a similar idea to the other activities but the shapes are much larger, and joined together with special tabs. The pieces also include Braille and scratch-and-sniff ink for a sensory experience.

Find out more about Be at the Hive and the Hive Festival

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And more!

Visitors who may benefit from a calmer, quieter environment, such as people on the autism spectrum, have an opportunity to experience a sensory-friendly early entry to the Art Gallery and Be at the Hive on 14 January.

If you’ve bee-come interested in this project and would like to know more, you can hear Noa Haim talk at the Hive Festival, also on 14 January, in an Auslan-interpreted event.