The Elephantine in the Anthropocene
July 6-January 12, 2018
Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Boone, North Carolina


Media: handmade and recycled paper, screenprint ink, india ink, paint, yarn, thread, found objects, vinyl

We are living in the Anthropocene, a geologic time period marked by the impact of the human race on Earth. We have caused irreversible damage to the planet through mass extinctions of plants and animal species, pollution, and alteration of the atmosphere.
 
With global species populations once in the millions, modern elephant herds are in serious decline because of habitat loss, human-elephant conflict, and ivory poaching. With respect to the latter, over 33,000 elephants are brutally murdered each year for their ivory, a resource with global consumer demand fetching prices over $2,000/kilogram. Is the decline of the elephant inevitable ? 
 
Both elephants and humans originated in Africa; they have roamed the earth together for nearly 200,000 years. Elephants and humans share a mutual ecology shaped by limited resources and entangled in structures of power. For humans, elephants have served as neighbors, companions, deities, transportation, enemies, entertainers, food, and weapons of war.
 
In many Asian and African countries, local communities historically relied on traditional hunting rituals that used the entire elephant for food and material with no waste. As imperial and colonial forces invaded and settled both continents, western demand for ivory grew, and trade routes formed linking slave labor with extracted ivory. The introduction of new firearms eliminated the need for poisoned arrows and handmade spears, introducing technological terrorism to the local environs and inhabitants.
 
Constant war and civil strife lead to the proliferation of increasingly mechanized weapons, while global demand for ivory and black markets to trade and sell weapons encouraged participation in poaching operatives for economic gain. Bolstered by neoliberal practices, rampant corruption within private, public, and political sectors of ivory trade encourages intercountry and intercontinental bribery, cronyism, nepotism, embezzlement, fraud, and laundering. Ivory is trafficked from Africa to Asia, a clandestine process facilitated by major imbalances of power, weak enforcement, low fines, and consumer-driven capitalism.
 
Stopping the demand for ivory is crucial to conserving Asian and African elephants. Extracting the tusks of an elephant not only destroys  life, but also disrupts kin groups within the matriarchal herd. With high levels of memory and emotional intelligence, the brutality of poaching is unforgivable.  Elephants are a keystone species, essential to maintaining biodiversity in their home ecosystems. Their enormous appetite for vegetation clears pathways for other animals and allows new growth, while their tusks can be used to dig for water, and their dung replants seeds along migration routes sowing grasses, trees and bushes in their wake.
 
How do we stop the demise of the elephantine in the Anthropocene? Around the globe,  advocates, conservation groups, national governments, and police forces are collaborating to halt the production and trade of worked ivory. Enhanced security measures, transparency, and stricter enforcement of punishment and higher fines address part of the problem. On the other end, individuals need to question the structures destroying our natural resources. Is a carved ivory trinket worth more than the life of one of our planet’s most “charismatic megafauna”? How do we discuss all of the elephants in the room and uses our lives for positive change?

Links:
Turchin Center