This is a touring public art installation that depicts wildlife and saves it. Their headline is the elephants arrive so humans don’t forget. They arrived in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District this week.
The elephants are made from lantana camara, one of the world’s top invasive weeds. This fast growing, noxious shrub has a stranglehold on 300,000sq. kilometers of India’s Protected Areas. Lantana pushes animals out of their forest homes into urban areas leading to an increase in human-wildlife conflict. The use of lantana to create the elephants helps remove the weed from protected areas, leaving wildlife more space to roam.
Each elephant has been created by The Coexistence Collective, a community of 200 indigenous artisans from the Bettakurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan and Soliga communities of India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Tamil Nadu. The collective has spent the past five years beautifully bringing to life every elephant they live alongside, in intricately detailed sculptural form.
Elephant families are matriarchal with each herd led by an older, experienced female. A family usually consists of a mother, her sisters, daughters, and their babies. Good matriarch decisions balance the needs of the group, avoiding unnecessary travel while remembering when and where good resources are.
Read more about the Elephants Here and Follow them on Instagram