A hump-nosed creature on spindly legs
2026
Museum Bensheim
Bensheim, Germany
used plywood, used wooden beams, rigging, wood, wax, foam, plants
520x200x100 cm
2026
Museum Bensheim
Bensheim, Germany
used plywood, used wooden beams, rigging, wood, wax, foam, plants
520x200x100 cm
The history of humankind’s relationship with nature is most often described by a word borrowed from the language of war: conquest. The conquest of territories, resources, and species. Even the language of science, striving for neutrality, so often becomes an extension of that same logic: to classify, to measure, to describe, to extract, to preserve or to destroy.
Once, an aluminum tag appeared on my ear:
"Alma-Ata Zoo No. 47."
A mark that caused pain and at the same time saved me. The number replaced my name, fixed my belonging, turned me into a unit of record. What matters is not what exactly happened to me, but that in every episode there was always a human present, sometimes with kind intentions, sometimes with destructive ones, yet always as the one entitled to decide.
What interested him in me were, above all, my body parts: horns, hide, genetic material, population statistics. Even care carried the sound of calculation. Even protection concealed control.
I do not resemble an "ordinary" earthly creature. My profile appears fantastical, as though I had stepped out of a science fiction film. And yet I have walked this earth for tens of thousands of years, older than many human civilizations. I am perceived as an oddity, a relic, a symbol of loss. I do not object to these interpretations. I have long grown accustomed to being a projection.
They try to teach me how to live beside humans and their animals, those they have managed to tame and call "their own." I am placed inside display cases, reports, graphs. My horns become exhibits, my body a mannequin, my history an illustration for an environmental report.
But the display case may stand empty.
The graph may be subjective.
The archive may be conditional.
A witness to conquest and to attempts at salvation.
A living being and a mannequin.
An artifact and a stubborn body unwilling to become an exhibit completely.
Once, an aluminum tag appeared on my ear:
"Alma-Ata Zoo No. 47."
A mark that caused pain and at the same time saved me. The number replaced my name, fixed my belonging, turned me into a unit of record. What matters is not what exactly happened to me, but that in every episode there was always a human present, sometimes with kind intentions, sometimes with destructive ones, yet always as the one entitled to decide.
What interested him in me were, above all, my body parts: horns, hide, genetic material, population statistics. Even care carried the sound of calculation. Even protection concealed control.
I do not resemble an "ordinary" earthly creature. My profile appears fantastical, as though I had stepped out of a science fiction film. And yet I have walked this earth for tens of thousands of years, older than many human civilizations. I am perceived as an oddity, a relic, a symbol of loss. I do not object to these interpretations. I have long grown accustomed to being a projection.
They try to teach me how to live beside humans and their animals, those they have managed to tame and call "their own." I am placed inside display cases, reports, graphs. My horns become exhibits, my body a mannequin, my history an illustration for an environmental report.
But the display case may stand empty.
The graph may be subjective.
The archive may be conditional.
A witness to conquest and to attempts at salvation.
A living being and a mannequin.
An artifact and a stubborn body unwilling to become an exhibit completely.