A Herd of Life-Size Elephant Sculptures Is Marching Across America

A herd of life-sized elephant sculptures is making its way across America to promote coexistence between humans and animals. Called the Great Elephant Migration, the traveling exhibition features 100 replicas of real-life Indian elephants made by roughly 200 artists in southern India.

The artworks debuted in London in 2021, and some of the sculptures are now permanently on display in the gardens of two royal family residences. After making a stop in India earlier this year, they’ve now made it across the Atlantic.

The herd is spending the summer in Newport, Rhode Island, before moving on to New York City’s Meatpacking District in the fall. From there, it will head to Florida, Montana and California.

The project is a collaboration between Elephant Family USA, a nonprofit working to protect Indian wildlife; the Coexistence Collective, a group of Indigenous artists living at the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in India; Art&Newport, a visual arts nonprofit; and other organizations.

The elephants are available for purchase, and the funds will go to 22 conservation organizations across the United States. For example, in Newport, the elephant sale proceeds will support Save the Bay, a nonprofit working to protect and restore Narragansett Bay. Already, 30 of the beasts have sold for between $8,000 and $22,000 a piece, depending on their size, reports NPR’s Chloe Veltman.

Organizers hope the exhibition serves as a reminder that humans must learn to coexist with wild animals. This idea is especially important since human activities—including climate change and development—are primarily responsible for animals’ habitat loss.

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“What could be more symbolic of the overlap between the human and animal world than a herd of elephants roaming New York City’s streets?” says Ruth Ganesh, co-founder of the Coexistence Collective and a trustee with Elephant Family USA, in a statement. “ I hope this exhibition reminds us of the awe we feel when in the company of wild, free animals and, in our increasingly urban world, inspires the human race to better share space.”

The large sculptures are made of lantana camara, an invasive tropical shrub that’s crowding elephants out of their natural habitats in India. As the hardy, flowering weed outcompetes the plants that pachyderms like to eat, they’re heading into human-developed lands, like coffee and tea plantations, per NPR.

Even so, people mostly live in harmony with elephants in India, even as the populations of both species have grown. India’s human population is now 1.4 billion, while the number of elephants stands at 25,000 to 30,000.

“Animals will survive in human-dominated landscapes if people tolerate them,” says researcher and conservationist Tarsh Thekaekara, co-founder of the Real Elephant Collective in India, to Forbes’ Chadd Scott. “That is the bottom line. The elephants have an extreme case and it’s nice to showcase that people are living with the largest land mammal. Everything else is possible.”

Organizers of the exhibition are also supporting an initiative to shred lantana camara and convert it into biochar, a type of charcoal made from organic waste. By the end of next year, they hope to have sequestered 2,625 tons of carbon and created more than 500 jobs for Indigenous communities in India.

Artists from the Soligas, Bettakurumbas, Kattunayakan and Paniyas communities in India crafted the sculptures based on elephants they know personally. Recognizing that animals have their own distinct personalities is “vitally important for the coexistence movement,” says Thekaekara in the statement.

“Individual animals may cause damage or pose a threat to humans, but not an entire species,” he adds. “Indigenous people around the world think of animals as ‘other-than-human persons,’ which fosters a deeper respect for all living beings, where humans and animals can live together more harmoniously.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.