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If you want to view a resurrection, then Columbus, Ohio is your city. Here, the long extinct Dodo bird can be seen gracing the walls of the Columbus Museum of Art thanks to the images in the exhibit “Dodo & Mauritius Island, Imaginary Encounters” by Finnish sculptor and photographer Harri Kallio. If one didn’t know the plump, flightless bird was extinct, he or she could be forgiven for believing this a documentary exhibit by any nature photographer—that’s how flawless the images on display are. |
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As Dead as a Dodo…Not Anymore. – Stephen Gosling
If you want to view a resurrection, then Columbus, Ohio is your city. Here, the long extinct Dodo bird can be seen gracing the walls of the Columbus Museum of Art thanks to the images in the exhibit “Dodo & Mauritius Island, Imaginary Encounters” by Finnish sculptor and photographer Harri Kallio.
If one didn’t know the plump, flightless bird was extinct, he or she could be forgiven for believing this a documentary exhibit by any nature photographer—that’s how flawless the images on display are. Thanks to excessive research, including visits to the only known complete Dodo skeleton, which resides at the Natural History Museum, London, England, Harri Kallio was able to construct complete replica Dodo birds. Taking goose and swan feathers as well as aluminum and plastic as his media, the artist brings the Dodos to life as protagonists in the their own imaginary tale.
Two Dodo models accompany the 23 large-scale digital color prints. One sculpture is the full-bodied and complete Dodo form used to create the imagery on show, and the other is the aluminum skeleton at the base of the same, completed Dodo model.
Each image, high in color and appeal, was uniquely created. Although Kallio was only able to sculpt a few Dodos, there are some images here that show Dodos wandering in groups. In these, seamless, duplicate images were shot with the repositioning of a Dodo, here and there, and then merged later with the help of editing software. If you weren’t informed of this fact, however, you would think Kallio had sculpted an entire flock.
In terms of the photographs, some Dodos are staring straight at you, their eyes in focus thanks to a superior use of depth of field, while others show the Dodo in shadow, looking out into the forest. Still others show the bird atop mountains, looking out over the view. The only difference between that view and the one that the living Dodos would have seen is the buildings just in sight from across the water. Here is a reminder of the “progress” that snubbed out the existence of this gentle creature.
Kallio’s dedication was not only in the depictions of the long dead Dodo, but also in the setting of the images. The Dodos’ only known habitat was the then idyllic rain forest island of Mauritius, located off the African coast in the Indian Ocean, and this is where every image in the exhibit was photographed. This is a kind of brief homecoming for the Dodo (if only in model form) after the last of the living Dodos was hunted out of existence in the late 17th century. The island now looks very different, with only 1% of the island’s forest remaining. A vast change thanks to human interference.
Much of Kallio’s work deals with the strange relationship between humans and nature, and this current work incorporating the Dodo is no different. This was once an animal that adapted to its habitat, had no predators and no need to worry. The Dodo was once peaceful, but man came along and destroyed everything, including the Dodo as a species.
Kallio has created a surreal view of how Mauritius might look today had certain events happened differently—a what-if scenario in which the Dodo survived. Whether or not it is Kallio’s intention to highlight certain current-day environmental issues, the show has a clear and present undertone in this direction. By presenting visual situations that may have come to pass had human intervention been absent, Kallio is ultimately presenting us with the hope that other events may be avoidable as well. Global warming, melting ice caps—everything can be avoided, if we only had the intention of changing it.
