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Arts

A 17 metre whale washed up on the Seine River as Belgian artists send a powerful message

Beached whales are an inevitable part of nature and can be a sad, yet incredible sight to see. It succeeds time and time again in getting attention from the public and media alike. 

whale

Captain Boomer Collective, along with a team of Belgian artists, created the dead whale as part of an art installation to raise awareness about our slowly but surely deteriorating environment, and how human impact has played a major part in this. 

So when one washed up in Paris a few days ago, it’s needless to say that the public was stunned. The 17 metre, dead “sperm whale” that washed up on the river Seine in Paris overnight was actually not a whale at all. 

Constructing the installation overnight, a team placed the statue on the riverbed. Then, placing seven metres of fencing around the carcass, crowds gathered to see the sight along with actors from the fake scientific organisation, ‘The North Sea Whale Association’. 

The project was a success, fooling various people into thinking it was a real beached whale, with one passerby concerned that human beings were the ones responsible for this tragic circumstance. This was the intent exactly, as well as raising awareness about whales in general and sperm whales being the more vulnerable kind due to commercial whaling.

The message here is that human ignorance and laziness is hurting the environment, killing off yet another beautiful, vulnerable species. 

Image via @ba_stephe

Via IFL Science.