Giant Eagle

Giant Eagle celebrates the world’s largest flying bird. The hōkioi, also named Haast’s eagle, was a menacing bird of prey which became extinct 600 years ago. This South Island raptor hunted flightless birds, including the now extinct moa.

In Bill Hammond’s valedictory painting, the watchful hōkioi cradles his cello whose stave is the neck and head of a moa. The eagle’s favourite prey has now become both hostage and ally. The eagle kneels upon a tarpaulin-draped platform above a plain littered with bird bones. The birds perched at the edge of the cliff survey the giant bird like an avian choir about to break into song. A snake-like creature raises its arms with a gesture like an orchestra conductor. The silhouetted trees call to mind species such as the rare, palm-like tarahinau, or Dracophyllum arboretum – ‘the dragon in the mist’.

All the birds resemble endangered or extinct indigenous species, such as the South Island kōkako. Giant Eagle is permeated with feelings of ecological loss. The birds gather ceremoniously for an open-air concert venerating a past New Zealand, yet this mythic moment also points to their own inexorable environmental fate.

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