Before the oil boom era in the Middle East, the people and the natives have a symbiotic relationship with the falcons and up till today, the relationship and friendship between human and falcon in the Middle East still stands based on mutual trust.

This is the concluding part of the five-part interview of one of Africa’s avant-garde artists – Adeola Balogun.

The Falcon’s Benevolence.

Adeola Balogun participated in the first Upcycled Art Festival at Art Hub Liwa in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates for a residency program titled “Patterns of Unity.”

The festival was organised between the months of April and May. The primary aim is to gather and attract artists and innovators with an environmentally conscious mind coupled with a ‘Go Green’ inspiration, focusing on the oil and gas industry, targeting maintenance, operations and constructions. “I got the invitation online and I was given all the logistic and traveling arrangements based on the quality of my existing theme that I have developed overtime and which also genuinely suit into the theme of the festival.

The residency program is dedicated to the process of converting useless products into magnificent visual and functional art and all eco-friendly creations.’’

In the statement of the organisers, using waste materials and turning them into something more than what they had represented earlier adds to the concept of recycling. Transferring the idea of sustainability from trash to art is one of the fundamentals of upcycling art.

An underlying idea of the festival is to use art to link cultures from all over the world and bridge the gap between oil and gas industries, nature, people and communities. The concept of the festival evolved due to the fallen out of certain materials in consumerism, such as plastic, paper, wood, metal, glass and in a country of oil and gas, people and communities often feel disconnected from the universal values of nature.

“This is not my first residency, I have been to Sweden earlier in the year and other places, but this happened to be a unique invite that I really enjoyed, Adeola Balogun commented.

Liwa is a city created for artists to live, create and exhibit, opened by one of the citizens simply known as Ahmed. “We were 13 artists drawn majorly from different parts of the globe, international artists known for their extraordinary up cycled artworks including sculpture and applied arts. I happened to be one of the two Africans at the residency and I came up with 18 works before the end of the program with materials sourced from used objects in the oil and gas sector that could be found in the middle east to make different connections with the traditions, culture, norms and values that associated with the people of the region.” Such fascinating cultures and stories somehow may sound fable-like, but very true.

The Falcon to the people of Middle East is an amiable bird and its chivalric disposition has been documented in the annals of history among the people of the Middle East and mediaeval Europe. Before the oil boom era in the Middle East, the people and the natives have a symbiotic relationship with the falcons and up till today, the relationship and friendship between human and falcon in the Middle East still stands based on mutual trust.

Historically, falconry was a popular sport and status symbol among the nobles and generally a culture of the Middle East.

The birds still live and feel relax on the arms and shoulders of the men of the Middle East. They serve their masters through thick and thin by scavenging for food for the men whenever they are tired and burnt out in the desert. This is a culture that is part of the Middle East chequered tradition, so special and still holds till today in the history and literature text of the Middle East.

This is also reminiscent of Adeola Balogun’s metaphoric admiration of animals and their natural instincts of benevolence theory compared to man in his Ants and Giants exhibition in 2011. Some of Adeola’s works at the residency include, After the Falcons, Drape, Exploration I, II, III, Heritage I and II.

Interview /words /Ireho Aito /images /photographs /Adeola Balogun’s archives /Google