Finnish photographer and sculptor Harri Kallio's fictional re-creation of the vanished dodo bird at the Williams Tower gallery gives pathos to an already sad story: When Portuguese sailors first landed on the island of Mauritius in 1598, they found dodos in significant numbers. Unaccustomed to predators, the dodo had no defense against the newcomers — or the dogs, pigs, rats and monkeys these invaders brought with them. The bird became extinct within 80 years.

Kallio's photos present themselves as natural shots of living dodos taken on location in Mauritius. Of course, they're faked; the dodo has been gone since 1695, well before photography was invented. Kallio first sculpted a flock of the funny-looking flightless birds based on old drawings, verbal descriptions and the scant remains in the world's museums. He then placed his simulated dodos in natural scenery and photographed them.

At least the rocky beaches and leafy jungles look genuine. The fakery of the dodos leaves every element of the pictures open to question. In a few places, close examination shows telltale signs of manipulation, but, as with so many photographs these days, there's no telling.

Years of National Geographic and the Discovery Channel lead us to expect documentary truth from pictures that look like these. Kallio's photographs, being overtly faked, prompt the question whether the fakery matters and why. Obviously, they are not a source of objective data, but Kallio's photos show that objectivity is not the point, neither of his photos nor of nature photography in general. What we really want is a feeling of personal contact with animals, an intimate view of their lives. Whether those lives are literally true or fictional re-creation matters little.

Most of Kallio's photos portray the dodo with loving contempt, as a hapless, awkward bird, tailor-made for victimization. Kallio's dodos are somehow aware of their own doomed status but, being stupid, don't quite get it. Their absurd, lumpy bodies and clownish, tragedy-mask faces invite an odd mix of sympathy and derision as they gesture and squawk for the camera in bewildered futility.

Kallio's best photographs recall the intriguing stylized stiffness of Audubon's famous bird paintings, and it's no coincidence: Audubon, like Kallio, used stuffed birds as models. In Benares #4 a flock of dodos is posed on a rocky seashore. They're not behaving like animals. They face in random directions, as if avoiding eye contact with one another. They're not doing anything in particular; not feeding, nesting or mating, just hanging around waiting to be clubbed to death, and uneasy about it. One dodo in the foreground stares out of the picture at us, like a sad Muppet asking for a stay of execution.

Pictures that hide the dodo's silly facial expressions become poetic; in Rivièredes Anguilles #3, a lone dodo is seen reflected in a cloud-filled pool. It's disorienting: The photograph is upside-down. The topsy-turvy, shimmering water gives the silhouetted dodo a magical aura. It's an enchanted scene from a lost world. In Le Gris Gris #2 two dodo heads are silhouetted against a barren spit of lava as they look outward into an empty turquoise sea, as if scanning the horizon for rescue.

Kallio's message is blurred; he explores his basic dodo re-creation idea from too many angles. Some photos are made to seem like faked nature photography. Others are blatantly posed comedic sketches; still others are interacting with anthropomorphic drama. A single strait-laced documentary photograph of a dodo skull and a behind-the-scenes image of his dodo-head sculpture in process document other far less interesting phases of his working process.

It's a nice little idea, pushed too far. Kallio's exhaustive exploration takes the fun out of it. Kallio's dodo pictures may be part of an artistic project larger than individual images, but the project could use some trimming: The nine photos on display at Williams Tower are a tiny sampling of the 150 images in the accompanying book, and the project as a whole is only as good as its best bits.