Baleejar is a sculptural representation of a sperm whale’s fluke—life-sized, matching one of an adult female—crafted from a ghost trawling net recovered from the waters of the Azores. The work was created during my residency on Pico Island, a place with a profound and complex connection to whales.

 

Until 1987, Pico was one of the central islands for whale hunting in the Azores. Whaling was practiced out of necessity- by hand, in open boats, with skills passed down through families. Today, the same waters once marked by violence are some of the richest places in the world to witness whales in their natural grace. The local identity is rooted in pride for that cultural history—not in the act of killing, but in the resilience, transformation, and ongoing connection the island has to the sea. Today, the same community has become a global destination for whale watching, and the sperm whale, once hunted, has become an icon of pride and protection.  

 

This sculpture is about reclaiming the verb “to whale”. 

Why do we say fishing to hunt fish, and whaling to hunt whales? We don’t say deering to hunt deer. 

For land animals, when their names become verbs, it’s often a gesture of personification or metaphor: to duck means to lower your head, to fox means to outsmart someone. These verbs evoke character—not death. On land, we place the violence on the action: we hunt deer, we hunt boars. At sea, the violence is placed too often on the animal itself. The word whaling reduces the whale to its death. 

 

Baleejar proposes a new definition: what if “to whale” meant to witness a fluke rise from the horizon? what if “to whale” meant to sing ancestral songs at sea? what if “to whale” meant to be protective, to be gracious, to be resilient? What if “to whale” was used  to celebrate the presence, not the loss, of these beings?

 

Here, a discarded fishing net—a tool once used to extract life—has been physically and symbolically repurposed. Its original function has been unraveled and rewoven to express interconnection: between humans and the marine world, between language and care, between past and present. This net has traveled unknown distances, trapped unknown lives. Now, as Baleejar, it becomes something else entirely.  Today, the people of Pico are proud of their identity, their culture, and their deep relationship with the ocean—not because they killed whales, but because they carry the memory forward with honesty. Baleejar asks: what’s stopping us from taking back the word? From letting “to whale” mean something beautiful?