Collected Moments of Survival

It’s time to talk about elephants and auctions. I have been banging on a bit about it in the last few weeks and I thought it was appropriate to join the dots.   My journey with Voortrekker began a year ago now. Splashed all over social media was the damning evidence that a gentle giant, an African spirit, was no more. At the time I was working on another exhibition that was entrenched in the desert sands of Africa. It was called Echoes in the Dunes.   Perhaps it was that connection that drove me to decide to do more, however, that is where the journey had its origins. Now, we are where I set the target. One year later, the anniversary of the death of Voortrekker and I’m looking for a whole bunch of people to open their hearts, minds and purses to help the Desert Elephants of Damaraland. In the meantime, the world has changed in a way that none of us ever imagined it could. We’re hunkered down, moaning and groaning. Each of us more concerned about our economic viability than we...

Voortrekker the pioneer elephant is no more. His footsteps now only an echo along the paths he once trod, his footprints have been devoured by the angry winds that whip their way along the Ugab River bed. Only his ghost still inhabits those sandy banks, the rumbles and the crack of breaking branches are now a whisper in the wind. His memory lives on only in the minds of those who loved him. Africa has given birth to many legends through the millennia, legends that are fireside stories that leave one wide-eyed and in awe of the deep knowledge entrenched in the valleys and plains and across the rolling hills.  The answers to our questions can only be answered when we learn to listen. Questions like, how did Voortrekker know the way back to the Ugab? Where does the courage come from for an elephant to venture back into a dangerous place, a place he knew to leave in order to survive? What is the driving force behind him going back to where he had just come from and how did he communica...