Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling back to earth

144 145 Kites in the desert An Egyptian oasis in the Sahara, Siwa lies on the border with Libya and is an 11-hour drive from Cairo. Since ancient times, the Siwa Oasis has been known as a paradise secluded from the rest of the world. It hardly rains or snows there, but strong winds remain constant all year. This inspired me to fly kites there with local primary school students. I ordered large-scale white kites from Weifang, a Chinese city famous for its kite production and kite festivals. I also ordered buckets and buckets of paint, so that over 600 local school children could colour the kites. The kites came in three shapes: ‘man’, representing the ancestors of Siwa who first settled in the oasis; ‘eagle’, referencing the legend of Alexander the Great, in which a mystical falcon guided the lost king and his army from the Sahara Desert to the Siwa Oasis where he then received an oracle; and ‘eye’, symbolising the vision that Siwans have for their home town as well as the unseen forces guiding Siwa. For this project, I imagined these kites that carried Siwa’s history and future overlooking its small, yet miraculous, patch of greenery in the boundless desert. After several days of painting, we planned to fly the kites — each kind on a different day. On the first day, we planned to fly the human-shaped kites in the town centre. The wind was unexpectedly weak. We had to run from one end of the street to the other, but we barely launched one kite into the air. Looking at all the eager and hopeful children tilting their heads skyward, I felt both moved and saddened for the children. Many of the kites we tried to fly depicted the children’s mothers. At the time of the workshop, married women in Siwa were only allowed to leave their house a handful of times, such as to give birth or to attend their father’s funeral. Every household in Siwa has a courtyard at the back of the house, where mothers could look up at the sky. I wanted the children to fly their kites, decorated with their mothers’ portraits, so that these women could see them from home. The next day, we flew the eye-shaped kite at the Temple of Amun, where Alexander the Great was pronounced by the high priest as the son of the deity of Amun. As our kite-flying project had become one of the rare large events specifically held for children in Siwa, many residents and tourists gathered, waiting for the arrival of strong winds. After struggling for the entire day, we finally managed to fly a kite. The solitary eye, the temple and the cloudless desert sky created a bizarre yet fascinating scene. On the third day, we were supposed to fly the eagle kites in the desert, but once again there was no wind. The children ran and ran with kites flapping behind them, but still no convocation of eagles appeared on the desert horizon. We all grew tired, as did the eagles. Finally, we decided to attach one of the eagle kites to the tail of a jeep, using its speed to send the kite into the sky. The children ran after the jeep, cheering, as if they were the ones flying. The weather let us down. We failed to fly hundreds of kites. I thought about this as I left Siwa and felt disappointed. Since then, however, every year around this time the children of Siwa fly kites. When I think about that I realise that, while we may not have completed the art project, Siwa was left with a kite festival, another form of culture. Man, Eagle and Eye in the Sky , realised in collaboration with over 600 schoolchildren from 40 schools throughout the Governorate of Marsa Matruh at Siwa Oasis, Sahara Desert, Egypt, 11–14 November 2003 Silk and bamboo handmade kites, paint Commissioned by Siwa Art Project, Egypt Above Children painting kites for Man, Eagle and Eye in the Sky , Siwa Opposite Cai Guo-Qiang working with children to make kites for Man, Eagle and Eye in the Sky , Siwa Flying a kite over Siwa Photographs: Hiro Ihara Courtesy: Cai Studio