Photo: The artist's mother, Hoda Abushady (ca.1930), at home in The Bee Kingdom, Egypt.
This initiative was funded on January 1, 2014 through Hatchfund:
www.hatchfund.org/project/the_bee_kingdom_archive
The Bee Kingdom archive (aka The Abushâdy Archive) includes the private papers and correspondence of Dr. A.Z. Abushady, examples of his scientific and literary publications, books from his personal library, illustrations, diagrams and patents for beekeeping inventions, published and unpublished poems, artworks by artists in his circle, manuscripts, radio addresses, librettos, ephemera, and photographs. Abushady was drawn to innovative gadgets like the handheld Kodak camera, and many of these photographs are 'snaps' taken by colleagues, family members, and Abushady himself to document meetings among poets and writers, or his progress in the laboratory and apiaries.
These materials were in turn preserved by Abushady's three children, Safeya, Ramzy, and Hoda, who strove to keep their father's legacy intact in the face of wars, displacement and death. My task has been to gather the pieces from each of their collections and organize them into one unified archive.
My ultimate goal is to digitize The Abushâdy Archive and make it accessible to historians and scholars. The first step was to secure and organize the physical archive. With support from contributors, I was able to bring all these materials together in one place, in the archive's current home in Brooklyn, NY, and to purchase archival storage boxes and sleeves to house them. Thanks to everyone who has supported this 3-year process.