One Hundred Life-Size Elephant Sculptures Thunder into Meatpacking District
Created over a five-year period by artisians from India, the Migrating Elephants exhibit is raising money for local conservation causes in each city it visits. In NYC, its second US stop, the exhibit is raising money for the Wild Bird Foundation.
| 16 Sep 2024 | 11:39
The Great Elephant Migration has mounted public art in a unique way: 100 elephants in an orderly faux migration along lower 9th Avenue, a sight for Gotham residents to behold. They will be residing in this space until October 20. (
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The Great Elephant Migration has installed 100 life-sized replicas in the Meatpacking District.Until October 20, you can view these pieces day or night, and invest in souvenirs at the pop-up store during normal working hours. (
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Looking more like a set from Law and Order SVU than the native grasslands of India, the 100 life-size elephants of The Great Elephant Migration art project are on view in the Meatpacking District through next month. (
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Two of the elephants on display at The Great Elephant Migration in the Meatpacking District. All the elephants are for sale: the elephant baby pictured here is $8,000.00; the money goes towards animal preservation. (
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A day before the opening of The Great Elephant Migration on September 6, this septet of pachyderms await placement in the arts-friendly Meatpacking District, home of the High Line and the Whitney Museum. (
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A herd of 100 elephants thundered into the Meatpacking district earlier this month, but there is no danger of being trampled.
The elephant herd is a life-size exhibit designed by artisans from India and you can even take one of the elephants home with you–for a price. The exhibit is part of the Coexistence Collection, which partners with local non-profits to raised money for local wildlife foundations.
From now until October 20, the non-thundering herd can be observed from W. 15th St. to Gansevoort St. in the West Side’s Meatpacking District, better known for Pastis, The High Line and Whitney Museum than pastoral ambiance.
Here in New York, its second US stop in a year-long, five-city tour, the exhibit is raising money for the Wild Bird Foundation. Prices for an elephant start at $8,000 but you can get souvenir replicas at a pop up store for considerably less.
Mingle with these life-sized replicas as you navigate below 15th Street, mixed among buildings of all sorts, cars, buses, trucks and pedestrians, this setting parallels India, where real elephants sometimes make their way into urban settings there.
If all you want to do is look, the exhibition is free, and unlike a zoo or circus, viewing is 24-7. This Migration is an initiative of India’s The Real Elephant Collective, which organized in 2002 with the friendship of five conservationists and a couple of orphaned elephants to help save the giant beasts.
The Elephants are constructed from an invasive weed called Lantana camara, one of the world’s top invasive weeds, encroaching upon over 40 percent of India’s protected areas. Its cute colorful flowers, and butterfly-attracting properties, popular in the cities as an ornamental plant, creates havoc if unattended.
The sculptures use cleared lantana bushes, in which the indigenous artisans bend the tough woody stems to create the replicas of elephants that they have seen in the forests. The life-sized elephants were made over the last five years in South India’s Niligiri Biosphere Reserve by the Coexistence Collective, a local team of 200 Indigenous artisans.
The Collective, in turn, has partnered with the Coexistence Consortium and Elephant Family organizations to take these large herds of of life-sized replicas all over the world where you can share space with faux large and small wild animals. Each sculptured elephant has a true life counterpart, and urges everyone to live well with nature, whatever their residence. Each sculpture is for sale and proceeds raised support on the ground conservation work that supports coexistence around the world.
After a successful British tour which attracted five million visitors last summer, for the first time in the U.S., the traveling public art exhibition and fundraising initiative has an ambitious 3,500-mile scheduled migration. The 100 elephant sculptures have already been to Newport, RI, before landing here in Manhattan, then it is onward in December to Miami Beach for Art Week. Next May and June will see the herd visiting the Blackfoot Nation tribal lands in Browning MT to support Indigenous-led conservation efforts and inspire peaceful human and animal coexistence. July 2025 will see the last stop in Los Angeles.
Each pieces sals proceeds raises support for the ground conservation work that supports coexistence between humans and beasts.
The Great Elephant Migration, the group coordinating the tour, supports conservation NGOs around the world who have found ways to live alongside lions, leopards, elephants, and some of the planet’s most vulnerable animals. The Migration organization has a large-scale initiative to shred vast areas of Lantana from India’s Protected Areas and convert it into biochar.
Need a memory? An Elephant HQ/ Love Brand & Co. pop-up store is there for you where 50 percent of profits from The Great Elephant Migration collection support coexistence located at 423 W 14th Street, open every day from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day until October 20.
For more information about the Migration or to buy an elephant, please visit