“The Great Elephant Migration,” a touring public-art exhibition that has opened in New York, not only depicts wildlife but also helps save it.
More than a century ago, New York City’s Meatpacking District teemed with large animals, most of them bound for a bloody end. Now, herds of huge creatures are once again gathered on this downtown Manhattan neighborhood’s cobblestone streets, but these are taking part in a new and joyful journey.
They are the life-size sculptures of “The Great Elephant Migration,” a public-art installation of a hundred animal models, each based on an individual living elephant in the densely populated Nilgiri Hills region of Southern India. Handmade by Indigenous artisans using dried lantana camara, an invasive, toxic shrub that has been destroying wildlife habitats, the sculpted elephants occupy some 12,000 square feet of the district’s plazas and walkways. Arriving in New York as part of a U.S. tour, the exhibition raises funds for conservation — and not just of elephants, whose three species are all endangered.
The show mimics “how it is when you’re in India, with the elephants walking through the streets,” said Dodie Kazanjian, the founder of the Rhode Island nonprofit Art&Newport, which organized the exhibition’s American tour with Elephant Family USA, a conservation group. Although the weatherproofed sculptures are stationary, “the interaction with people has been an important part,” she said during a video interview.
The installation, which opens in the Meatpacking District on Friday and runs through Oct. 20, will be accompanied by public events, including a blessing of the elephants on Friday at 4 p.m. in Gansevoort Plaza; a conservation-themed panel discussion on Tuesday at 9 a.m. in Chelsea Market; and a neighborhood parade on Sept. 23. A related show of works about elephants and migration by the artist Hadi Falapishi will open at 82 Gansevoort Street later this month.
And yes, you can touch the elephants.
“We’re trying to recreate that feeling of awe and wonder and connection,” Ruth Ganesh, a trustee of Elephant Family USA, said in a recent interview in the district. However, she added with a laugh, “we are hoping that no one tries to climb on them.”