Mo Ganji: ‚Akikiki | Akikiki | Oreomystis bairdi | No. 005 from work group 8/99

‚Akikiki | Akikiki | Oreomystis bairdi

In a single, unbroken line, Mo Ganji sketches the ʻAkikiki — a small, quietly unassuming songbird that once crept through the montane forests of Kauaʻi, Hawaii. That slender stroke does more than outline a body: it becomes a gesture of memory and fragility, a trace of a life balanced on the edge of continuity. For Ganji, the “single line” is a return to essence: it reveals what remains when all else is stripped away. Here, the line is a whisper — fragile, yet full of presence — evoking the ʻAkikiki’s subtle, tree-trunk-creeping behaviour, its soft colors, and its intimate contact with canopy bark, moss and lichen.

The ʻAkikiki (Oreomystis bairdi) is — or was — one of the world’s most endangered birds. Endemic to the high-elevation forests of Kauaʻi, it now survives (if at all) only in the highest remnant patches of native wet forest. Once somewhat widespread across the island, its range has shrunk drastically. Since 2000 it has been listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List.

The threats to the ʻAkikiki are many and compounded: introduced mosquitoes transmit avian malaria (and avian pox) — diseases to which this native honeycreeper has little resistance — severely limiting its habitable elevation ranges. Predation by invasive rats and other non-native animals endangers eggs and nestlings, while habitat loss and forest degradation (exacerbated by invasive plants and feral ungulates) further shrink its refuge.

By rendering the ʻAkikiki as a single, delicate line, Ganji invites the viewer to sense not only its form, but the precariousness of its existence. The line becomes a metaphor for a species hanging by a thread. It is an elegy in ink: a tribute to a vanishing forest song, and a warning that what we lose may disappear without even a final note.