About

Art, science and neighbourhood.

RefuBees started without a client, precisely to leave room for experiment. It has since become a method that cities, schools and residents can use together.

In short

Fourteen years on one thread.

From BeeCare in Amsterdam in 2011 to the totems in the Plantage and in Leiden: the history of RefuBees as a timeline.

Hans Kalliwoda with an audience at a presentation

Hans Kalliwoda

Artist and researcher.

Hans Kalliwoda makes interventions where art and science meet. RefuBees grew out of his PhDArts programme at Leiden University and has since become long-running action research in Amsterdam.

Blindpainters Foundation

Thirty years of independent art.

RefuBees is a production of Blindpainters Foundation, a registered charity (ANBI status) that has been making independent contemporary art for thirty years.

blindpainters.org →

Partners and funders

BeeCare
City of Amsterdam
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
Naturalis
Stichting DOEN
BNG Cultuurfonds
City of Leiden
Stadt Burghausen
TU München
Rijkswaterstaat
Fred Foundation
Cruydt-Hoeck
HB|3D
3D Orbit
Veldtwerk
Ninabel

With thanks to the partners and funds that make RefuBees possible.

Press and publications

Written about RefuBees.

Download the press kit
LandschapThe city as a pollinator refugePeer-reviewed essay · 2027
De Blauwe KamerThe city as ecological infrastructureOpinion piece · 2026
BIINDThe city as the last refuge for wild beesArticle
NBC NewsBees are dying at an alarming rate. Amsterdam may have an answer.International

Contact

Want to work together, or have a question?

hans@blindpainters.org