Response to “The Conference of the Birds”
In response to Farid ud-din Attar The Conference of the Birds, I made the duck and the hoopoe out of modeling clay. I painted the duck to look like a mallard, with a green head and neck, gray, black, and white shades on his wings and feathers, and a brownish red color on his body. The hoopoe is painted with a gray beak with a black tip; has feathers, wings, a lower body, and feathers protruding from its head that have black and white stripes. In order to set the scene wherein a reader encounters these birds, I surrounded the duck with clay pieces painted blue to symbolize water, re-creating the scene where the duck protests that he is quite pious, since he lives in and loves water, thereby performing ablutions fairly constantly. The hoopoe chides him for being too wrapped up in ritual practices rather than focusing on the path to God-centrism, saying,
“You value water’s purity, you say, /But is your life as pure as you declare?” (Attar 21 from http://sufibooks.info/Sufism/The_Conference_of_the_Birds_Fardiuddin_Attar.pdf).
The hoopoe is resting on a log made of cardboard as he addresses the duck, who is in the water. The hoopoe and duck are a pivotal example for Sufi though about the need for a Shaykh and for seeking experiential and esoteric knowledge (marifa) over learned knowledge (‘ilm). The hoopoe is the Shaykh in Attar’s poem, and the duck is one of many who learn from him and follow him to encounter the Simurgh (i.e. God).