Animal puppets flee northwards

A procession of life-like puppet animals, built to scale, are on a 20,000km expedition from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Departing on the 9th April, the creations form part of a bold public artwork entitled The Herds, fashioned by The Walk Productions with the objective of directing the spotlight onto the climate emergency.

It's a stark warning of the knock-on effects of the crisis, whereby creatures could be driven to flee their habitats owing to the burgeoning climate disaster. It underscores the far-reaching global impacts, as project organiser David Lan outlines.

David Lan: "This project tries to give the public a powerful emotional sense of what's happening to the planet by this journey, by now 20, later 40, later 70 animals from all over West Africa, Morocco, Europe, who are travelling to escape from the damage done to their ecosystem."

In the footprints of numerous human migrants similarly driven from their homelands, the column advanced through Spain and France before descending on London.

Although the creatures are fabricated from recycled materials, with a focus on being biodegradable and organic, the initial intention to solely utilize cardboard turned out to be unworkable. Siphokazi Mpofu clarified the process.

Siphokazi Mpofu: "Then in this project, we start from the strictly only cardboard, but then because of the challenges of the cardboard, we ended up like adding wood, which is plywood. And then the material that we are using is mostly a recycled material, which is the cardboard that you can see on the animals, the skin is made out of cardboard. And then the joints is the black rubber tendons."

The collective herd will halt temporarily in Norway to observe the ancient traditional practices of the Sami people. This indigenous group has been severely impacted by the climate crisis. During the following month, August, the procession will retreat to the Arctic Circle.

The project's Artistic Director, Amir Nizar Zuabi, says The Herds represents "an urgent artistic response to the climate crisis, a living breathing call to action that stampedes across continents." Its fundamental objective is to bring about change.