We headed into central London yesterday and to our surprise were met with an elephant dressed as Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street.
He was the first of many that we came across on our walk about town. These elephants were all created by artists and celebrities to support the efforts to conserve the dwindling Asian elephant population which is in dire need of help.
My favorite of the day was this one, “Cholai” in Leicester Square:
When we got home we looked up the Elephant Route Map and read about the project and we plan to go back in to see more, like this one by Jack Vettriano, “The Singing Butler Rides Again”:
I want to see the next one especially, outside one of my favorite places, The Natural History Museum. Her name is Phoolan, created by the artist Carrie Reichardt. She is representative of the beauty of elephants to the eye of an audience, dressed for a parade but the other side of the coin is their destruction by man’s abuse of the land and of them. I love her pink and raspberry red skull head-piece and ankle bracelet, very Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-ish.
Click below to watch a video on how Phoolan was put together, a lot of man hours and tile went into this little lady:
To find out more about the elephants on show and to download a map if you want to see them yourself click on the links below:
(All images copyright The London Elephant Parade 2010, except the image of Phoolan close-up, it is a press release photo from the Blog of Carrie Reichardt)