The extraordinary pathway to human life is made visible in this series of bronze sculptures showing babies in a cutaway womb before birth.
The Miraculous Journey, an art installation by Damien Hirst, is a fitting sight along the roadway outside Sidra Medicine, a hospital dedicated to women and children. Fourteen larger-than-life bronze sculptures show images of the fetus from conception through the full cycle of gestation. One statue depicts twins in utero, lined up head to foot. Another shows a fetus in breech position. Gaze up at the final statue of a newborn child, which is 46 feet (14 meters) tall. The sculptures weigh 216 tons (196 metric tons) and took three years to create.
Note that Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, head of Qatar Museums and sister of Qatar’s emir, commissioned the work. She saw the British artist’s drawings of prenatal development and helped him to achieve his goal of moving from two to three dimensions. As part of her efforts to create a platform for contemporary artists from around the world, she made the somewhat controversial choice of this subject matter in an Arabic country that rarely sees public nudity. She explains the appropriateness of these images because of the Quran’s celebration of the miracle of birth.
After an initial unveiling in 2013, the sculptures were put in protective wraps for years while construction work was completed at the hospital. With a second unveiling in 2018, the statues complement the completed medical center’s mission to provide health care for women and babies.
From inside the hospital parents can point out the window to show siblings of newborns where their baby brother or sister came from. The series is positioned to be visible from both the street and the desert.
Find The Miraculous Journey art installation by Damien Hirst along the roadway at Sidra Medicine. Travel by car or take a taxi here from Hamad International Airport in about 30 minutes.
While in the area, visit some of the universities of Education City or tour the Qatar National Convention Centre, which contains another larger-than-life mom-related statue, this one a giant spider known as Maman.
