JUL 31 2025

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Dear citizen,

 

THE PIGEON PARADOX reframes the pigeon as a mirror to humanity—challenging audiences to see how perception, utility, and biodiversity collide in the stories we are writing in nature. The project exposes the paradox of a species we domesticated, discarded, and ultimately drove to genetic erosion. Once, wild rock doves thrived in coastal cliffs, we reshaped them into domesticated tools: food, messengers, companions, and crowned them with poetic symbols. But when their utility faded, we abandoned them, unleashing a genetic tidal wave as feral pigeons hybridized with wild populations. Today, the rock dove teeters on extinction, and how do we view the survivors? The very birds we engineered now scrounge our sidewalks, labeled ‘pests’ for thriving in the world we forced upon them. We celebrate ‘wildness’ only when it suits us, and vilify the creatures that adapt to our chaos. What does it mean that we’ve erased a species twice: first genetically, then through contempt?
Each pigeon in the video is a walking embodiment of human perception. The final pigeon struggles to catch up due to its missing toes - a common real-life injury - bringing our attention back to the very real living beings.
 
The purpose of THE PIGEON PARADOX is not to cultivate affection for
pigeons, but to make us aware of how unconscious biases shape behavior. A huge digital pigeon is memorable, but the petite living creatures echo the influence in every corner of the city - a recurring reflection on our collective perceptions and their real-world consequences.


From love,
with pigeon.