ELEPHANT ENCOUNTER!
For the most recent ART & ABOUT event, AOPR members met in Livermore and witnessed an enchanting exhibition of 30 life-size Indian elephants handcrafted by Indigenous artisans from Lantana camara, a toxic invasive plant that chokes native forests and displaces wildlife. Harvesting the weed clears vital forage space for real elephants, and the traveling exhibition of elephant sculptures brings global awareness to a conservation model of sustainable livelihood, forest restoration, and human and wildlife coexistence.
Elephant families are Matriarchal, and the public art exhibition in Livermore features an older, experienced female leading a herd, along with mothers, sisters, daughters and their babies. The males bring up the rear.
Each elephant sculpture is unique, a faithful replica of a specific, real-life wild elephant known by name, character, and personality to the indigenous artists who made them. It is easy to spend hours walking among these majestic creatures and admiring each individual.
The creators of the herd live in the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India, a place where humans and elephants share space more closely than anywhere else on Earth. Here, Indigenous communities see every part of nature as alive, intelligent, and deserving of respect. In this worldview, humans are not separate from nature but woven into it. What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. This mutual care is not poetic thinking, it is the foundation of survival and coexistence.
If you missed the outing but would like to visit the elephants, the herd will be on display until December 6. More information here: https://thegreatelephantmigration.org/pages/visit
(Photos by K Olival, Jackie Mucha, Sharon Taylor-Ward & Anna Froker)
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