Animals leave Africa for the Arctic

Life-sized puppet animals began a 20,000km journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the 9th April. The puppets are part of an ambitious public artwork called The Herds. This was created by The Walk Productions, and intends to highlight the current climate crisis.

It's a reminder of the potential consequences of the climate crisis, when animals could be compelled to seek safety. It highlights the fact that nowhere will escape the effects of the crisis, as the organiser David Lan points out.

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."

Following the path of many human migrants who are obliged to flee their homelands, the unusual group moved up through Spain and France to the English capital.

Constructed of recycled materials, the intention was to build puppets which were environmentally-friendly. The original plan to only use cardboard proved impractical, as Siphokazi Mpofu explains.

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."

In July, the procession will pause in Norway to witness the ancient customs of the Sami people, whose lives are seriously affected by the climate emergency. The group will then disappear into the Arctic Circle in the following month.

Amir Nizar Zuabi, the project's Artistic Director, describes The Herds as "an urgent artistic response to the climate crisis, a living breathing call to action". Its aim is to inspire real change across a range of continents.