Public art installation “Falcon” was created by, dutch artist and sculptor, Tom Claasen and installed in July of 2021, outside the departures hall of the Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar. Fascinating sculpture of a falcon rises in 12m height and weighs almost 7.5 tons. The materials used for construction are steel, stainless steel and aluminum. Covered by the gold paint, the organic silhouetto of a raptor bird plainly shows his beak, feathers, claws and tail. The installation is both a depiction and appreciation of regional wildlife.
Claasen is known for his proclivity to make sculptures of animal and human subjects, and in this case, he combined both. The falcon is dressed in traditional attire and the curves of his feathers resemble Arabic calligraphy. Falcon is personified and is no longer a hunting bird in this sculpture. Instead it serves as a symbol of national identity and representation of the aviation routes established by Qatar across the world.(1) Using falcon as a metaphor for aircraft, and falconry as for aviation could raise the concern of dangers of such biomimicry. In this blog post, I argue that drawing analogies from natural non-human ecosystems to artificial man-made structures leads to potential risk of legitimizing environmentally hazardous human practices. For that, I am going to use the theory of specific natures from Lorraine Daston’s “Against Nature” (2019).
Lorraine Daston introduces biomimicry through the diversity of nature and the frequent resemblance of human organizational orders to the natural orders. Often this diversity was used for justification, condemnation, praising and blaming of norms and establishment of what’s legitimate and what’s illegal.(2) Taking this into consideration, there appears a question, could the falcon mimicry of avia routes from Qatar to the rest of the world, help to legitimize and justify the carbon footprint emitted from the airline industry for the broader public.
Here occurs the clash (brought by Daston) between naturalia of specific natures versus artificialia of crafted things. What makes the specific natures unique is an integrity and tendency mostly set by the ability to reproduce the species ‘from like to like’. This means that metaphorically comparing falcon (naturalia) to aircraft (artificialia) is inappropriate as a specific nature of falcon is normative due to ability to reproduce. This leads to a reconsideration of unnatural as undesirable, thus aircraft as redundant. What art installation is doing, is serving the opposite purpose of previously mentioned assertion, that instead of using naturalia to remove artificialia, it reinforces and praises it.
The “Falcon” installation provokes questions of violence done to specific natures. As Daston puts it, “It is possible to alter both appearance and conduct, but only by constraining or ‘doing violence to’ specific nature.” Firstly, it is crucial to question whether falconry is a forced practice and does it limit the falcon’s freedom. It might depend on the attitude of the owner towards the bird but, overall, falconry could be beneficial for falcons in case humans take care of them and teach them how to hunt. Secondly, does aviation harm the falconry practice? Clearly, falconry as a practice moved from local to international level, and falcons from all over the world are transported via planes to reach International Hunting and Falcons Exhibitions such as S’hail.(3) This leads to rising interest in hunting and as a result, forced and frequent falconry is more likely to make other species endangered. In that sense, “Falcon” sculpture is a perfect example of anthropocentrism, as it is clear that both falconry and aviation serve the pursuit of human pleasures and needs.
- Abdallah, Hala, “Falcon’ Latest Artwork to Soar into Hamad International Airport,” Culture, Doha News, July 22, 2021, https://dohanews.co/falcon-latest-artwork-to-soar-into-hamad-international-airport/.
- Daston, Lorraine, Against nature, Vol. 17, MIT Press, 2019, p.6.
- Baluyut, Joelyn, “Falcons, Hunting Exhibition Opens at Katara,” The Peninsula, September 6, 2022, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/06/09/2022/falcons-hunting-exhibition-opens-at-katara.
