“We do not share the earth with objects, but with other lives,” reads a sign at “The Great Elephant Migration” in Boston. “To see elephants as people is not to make them human. It is to recognize that they have always been someone, not something.”
The enormous installation of about a hundred sculptures of Indian elephants “migrating across the US to inspire the human race to share space” arrived on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall, extending from Dartmouth to Fairfield streets, on Aug. 8 for a visit continuing through Sept. 13, 2026. Produced by the New York nonprofit Elephant Family USA, the artwork asks us to see wildlife as family.
“We belong to a family larger than our own,” another sign adds. “…Life is not a pyramid with humans at the top. It is a living web, where every thread is connected to another. Tug one strand and the whole web responds. Strengthen one, and many others grow stronger. We are not separate from nature. We are one strand within it. To share space is to remember that every member of the family belongs.”
The art installation is wildly successful in attracting crowds of people, couples, families, everyone taking photos, selfies. People can’t resist touching the elephants, which are crafted from woody reeds known as lantana camara. According to the nonprofit’s website, “This fast growing shrub has taken over 40 percent of forests in India, obliterating native plants and diminishing food sources for animals, pushing them out of forests and into urban areas. The ‘Migration’ supports a large scale lantana removal project.”
“Creative director Ruth Ganesh and conservation researcher Dr. Tarsh Thekaekara came together in 2015 to envision ‘The Great Elephant Migration.’ Their partnership grew into a collaboration with The Real Elephant Collective, a community of skilled indigenous artisans. … Each elephant is crafted by artisans from the Bettakurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan and Soliga communities of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve” in southern India, according to organizers. “The creation of these elephant sculptures brings financial stability, recognition and pride to 300 members of the Soliga, Bettakurumba, Kattunayakan and Paniya tribes, who live alongside the wild elephants that inspired each sculpture.”
The project visited London in 2021, Bangalore’s Lalbagh Botanical Garden, Newport, Rhode Island, New York City and Miami in 2024, and Las Vegas and Los Angeles in 2025. Sales of the elephant sculptures help support the organization’s donations, more than $1.4 million since 2024, a sign says, to “restore forests, strengthen indigenous livelihoods and biocultural diversity … and support projects around the world where people and wildlife coexist.”
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