Faking Nature

By Ali Al Yousifi

If you’ve visited the Grand Avenue in the Avenues Mall, you might have noticed that the palm trees lining the boulevard are all fake. What does it mean to ‘plant’ a fake plastic tree?

I was also walking along Damascus Road the other day, when I noticed that the grass between the two sides of the road was greener that usual. It turned out that it was fake. It’s like the plastic grass used in the small football fields popping up all around Kuwait.

 I can’t deny that it looked elegant, especially with the white pebbles bordering the patches of grass. But I’m not sure I like the idea of fake grass. I can’t help thinking that vegetation needs to be alive: it has to live and die and change with seasons.

On the other hand, it does look beautiful. And if I hadn’t learnt that it was fake, I would have been even more impressed with the way it looked. So does it matter whether these green blades are made of plant cells or recycled plastic?