Interacting with REAL Elephants

By Dawn

In September, I volunteered with The Great Elephant Migration, a traveling exhibition of 100 life-size elephant sculptures made in Southern India. The elephants were crafted from Lantana, an invasive shrub that looks similar to bamboo, and the exhibition’s purpose was threefold: to promote the ideal of human/wildlife coexistence, to provide work for the artists, and to remove Lantana.

I knew that “the herd” had first spent two months in Newport, Rhode Island, on and around the grounds of Salve Regina University. By luck, I had the chance to chat about the exhibit with Dr. Linda Forsberg, the university’s Assistant Director of Retreats and Discernment, on Universal Brotherhood Day at Vedanta Society of Providence. 

Two days later, my first shift began in New York. The herd had arrived via flatbed truck, leaving those hallowed grounds for a densely populated part of Manhattan known as the meatpacking district. (No meatpacking occurs there anymore; the neighborhood is congested with high-end retail.) After being issued a green vest and a nametag identifying me as an “Elephant Guardian,” I was sent to interact with some of the hundreds of people milling around. Many had planned their visit; others had stumbled, delighted, onto to the sight of elephants dominating the plaza, peeking out from behind urban planters, merrily tearing the fabric of expectation. The atmosphere was giddy. There were babies in strollers and old people in walkers, people of all races, in every manner of dress, plus a couple of unimpressed dogs. For hours, I answered questions, snapped group photos, listened and observed.

As is the case with anything we see, people projected their own experiences and emotions onto the elephants, and in turn, emotions and memories were stirred within them. An elephant may signify a range of attributes from strength, wisdom, and holiness to adorability or fearsomeness. It may evoke thoughts of Buddha or Ganesh. In the west, people commonly have childhood memories of visiting zoos or circuses. Again and again, visitors wanted to tell me their stories. One man was doing scholarly research. A woman wanted to recount her adventures in Thailand, which included swimming with elephants. Another wanted to detail her collection of figurines, and her mother’s. In the process of telling any personal story, memory is subtly recomposed and perceptions shift, and all the while new stories of this day were taking shape.

Of course, the elephants on display weren't “real.” They were constructed by human minds and hands; the connection is internal. And for all that they were beautiful, something equally remarkable was occurring in the mingling of stories and experiences as people came and went, their bodies shaping a moving sculpture in time.

Art is trans-rational. The paradox is that through obvious artifice, it can disrupt the unreal membrane between me and not-me, if only fleetingly.

At the end of October, the herd was loaded onto flatbeds heading toward Miami. New York City continues apace. To the casual observer strolling through the meatpacking district, no trace of elephants remains.