AMATEUR WATCHING AT PASSPORT CONTROL, 2016-2019

To create the series entitled Amateur Watching at Passport Control (2016-2019), I studied all 195 passport covers currently in circulation worldwide. I dissected the symbolism of coats of arms featured on the covers and identified four major categories: flora, birds, big cats, and weapons. For the series, I isolated each symbol from its national context and drew it true to the source on a copper plate, etched and one copy printed. From Lebanon’s cedar to Mauritius’ dodo,  to Georgia’s lions, and East Timor’s AK 47, the four series of Amateur Watching at Passport Control bring to life this curious intersection between nation and nature.

Amateur Bird Watching at Passport Control (series of 43 works)
relief etching on paper, 12 x 9 inches each, unique and digital print on silk-poly, 44 x 54 inches each, ed of 3

Amateur Big Cat Watching at Passport Control (series of 39 works)
relief etching on paper, 12 x 9 inches each, unique and digital print on silk-poly, 44 x 54 inches each, ed of 3

Amateur Flora Watching at Passport Control (series of 46 works)
relief etching on paper, 12 x 9 inches each, unique

Amateur Arsenal Watching at Passport Control (series of 30 works)
relief etching on paper, 12 x 9 inches each, unique

When we speak about globalization we mostly mean the global circulation of information, money and commodities. However, long before this circulation started animals, birds and insects were circulating around the world – and they still are. Migration of birds and animals preceded the migration of men. At the same time not all the animals migrate. Some of them are local – and parts of local ecologies. That is why migration of animals and other living organisms, such as viruses and microbes, is seen as dangerous for the ecological balance in certain regions. Now, the analogy with the human migration is obvious. Often enough it is also seen as a negative factor destroying the ecological balance of certain national states.

Alina Bliumis came to the USA from Belarus. One of the persistent topics of her art is a reflection on the processes of accommodation and integration in which everyone with a similar background is unavoidably involved. The tone of this reflection is far from being dictated by personal ressentiment or protest. Rather, her attention is drawn by the absurdities of the processes themselves. Her recent projects “Amateur Bird Watching at Passport Control” and “Political Animals” deal with the images of animals and birds that serve as symbols for different national states and thus put on the official documents, including passports, of their citizens. There is this standard expression: free as a bird. Speaking about the freedom of birds we mean, of course, the migrating birds that high in the sky cross all the national borders – the freedom which the planes, for example, do not have.

However, the birds which images we find in our passports are not migrating birds. Mostly, they are birds of prey – like eagles, for example. In this respect they are similar to the political animals – lions or bears. The eagles do not migrate – they are circling in the air and controlling their territory. They are machines of surveillance. They look for a prey – and catch it. So it is clear enough why so many states have chosen the eagle as its symbol. Of course, there are also some more peaceful examples. But the common characteristic of all these birds is the fact that they are local – be it a pelican from Barbados or a parrot from Dominica. All these birds are prisoners of their territories. Do they ever dream to become free, to migrate, to visit different countries – and not only to draw always the same circles over the same territory? We do not know it. But if the birds have these dreams it is the citizens of the states that have images of these birds in their passports who realize these dreams – at least in symbolic terms. Thus, even if a parrot remains on Dominica and a pelican - on the Barbados the passports with their images have a chance to be checked at the airports all around the world. Whatever can be said about the migrants one thing is sure: they realize their birds’ dream of flying.

Boris Groys What do the birds dream about? Political Animals, catalog, Aperto Raum, Berlin, 2018

Drawing attention to the unsuspected diversity and abundance of avian imagery that can be found embossed in metallic gold on national travel documents was the focus of Amateur Bird Watching at Passport Control (2016-19) by New York- based Belarusian artist Alina Bliumis. She identified forty-three states whose passports feature living or extinct, realistic or anthropomorphic feathered creatures on their covers, including the flamingo for the Bahamas, a vulture for Mali, a dodo for Mauritius, doves for Cyprus and sisserou parrots for Dominica. For her graphic series, the artist extricated the species from the state insignia and drew them anew to highlight how the natural world is enmeshed in national representations. Birds are commonly used as potent state symbols by projecting avian characteristics onto national identities. For instance, Australia has the emu, as "it is thought never to take a step backwards’, while the eagle's 'reputation for strength and ferocity' has been counted on by nations including Germany, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Albania and the USA, according to author Jeremy Mynott. In Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience, he put this prevalence down to the fact that 'birds are above all creatures of the air, the realm between that of gods and humans in which they move with such ease', noting that it is 'the power of flight, surely, that we most envy and admire, in our conscious lives as in our dreams'. In that sense, Bliumis's work pointed to the irony that those traveling with passports do not have the avian privilege of flying without consideration of natural borders, despite the auspicious emblems on their documents.

Maja Fowkes, Reuben Fowkes, Art and Climate Change (World of Art) , Thames & Hudson, Apr 7, 2022, Political Ornithology chapter