Amid the COP29 climate summit, Captain Boomer Collective, an organization that puts on location-based shows exploring the boundaries between reality and fiction, placed a giant beached whale on the shoreline of the Caspian Sea in Baku, Azerbaijan. The dead whale, however, is fake.
The installation is part of the organization’s ongoing project in which they place “a life-size, hyperreal statue of a sperm whale beaches on the shores and river banks of the old world,” their website reads. CNN, who reported the whale’s latest stop, noted that the organization aims to raise awareness of global ecological destruction.
The expertly constructed statue doesn’t just look like a dead whale but smells like one too. The group places the fake whale on shorelines during the night, hiding rotting fish nearby to mimic the smell of a rotting animal. The organization places a fence around the carcass and employs actors to play scientific figures of the fictitious North Sea Whale Association.
Amid these intricate scenes, curious crowds watch the actors expertly mimic autopsy, sampling, dissection, and more on the dead animal.
“During our beachings, we see an intensive interaction among the crowd. People address each other, speculate and wonder,” the website reads. “They offer help and ask for information. The different layers of perception create funny games. Some audience members know it is a work of art but feed the illusion to other people.”
What the Dead Whale Represents
Bart Van Peel, the Chief Navigating Officer of the organization, told CNN the actors play out a “tapestry of stories” amid the installation, “like, maybe because of climate change, it changed its migration route.” The scene has drawn thousands of people, some of whom have stayed at the scene for more than an hour. Many witnesses had “very emotional reactions” to the scene, Van Peel told the outlet.
Per the organization, the installation reconstructs the “magical event” of a beached whale, while also serving as “a gigantic metaphor for the disruption of our ecological system.”
Baku was the perfect place for the latest installation, as global leaders are in town to discuss climate change. Captain Boomer Collective got approval from Azerbaijani authorities for the installation, CNN reported. The dead whale will remain in place throughout the COP29 summit, which runs through Nov. 22.
“It’s this gesture of a beast coming from another element and throwing itself at our feet and saying: ‘Look, I can’t anymore,’” Van Peel told the outlet. “There’s an exhaustion. It’s a big question mark. What are you going to do?”
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