⌓ Elephant Alchemy

Transforming Through Sacred Encounters

The GEM | Los Angeles

Among the Herd: The Great Elephant Migration

The morning I first stepped into my role as an elephant guardian, the Unceded traditional territories of the Tongva, Chumash, Tataviam, Kitanemuk, and Serrano peoples felt different beneath my feet — as if the earth itself had shifted to accommodate a herd of 100 life-sized elephant sculptures that would transform these manicured streets into something between gallery and pilgrimage site. What I thought would be a simple docent position became something far more profound: a front-row seat to witness how public art doesn’t merely occupy space, but alchemizes it.

The Alchemy of Purpose

Each afternoon, I’d arrive to find my charges exactly where I’d left them — these magnificent beings woven from lantana, an invasive species that had once choked the life from native landscapes across continents. There was poetry in this transformation: a plant that destroyed ecosystems had been reborn as herald for conservation and, more importantly, as teachers of coexistence.

Created by indigenous artisans in the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India — a region where humans and elephants navigate the planet’s most densely overlapped coexistence — each elephant embodied a worldview that sees all of nature as alive and possessing soul.

“This is Kamini,” I’d tell visitors, running my hand along her distinctive ear pattern, “each of these sculptures is modeled after a real-life elephant known to The Coexistence Collective, they are known by name, appearance, and personality to the artisans who spent 4–6 months crafting them.”

coexistence collective

coexistence collective

coexistence collective

Unexpected Teachers

The city’s dogs became my companions and unlikely curators. Time after time, I watched as canines instinctively sought shade beneath these woven giants, their ancient pack wisdom recognizing shelter. They’d pause, sniff curiously at the lantana-woven legs, heads tilting in that universal gesture of canine contemplation.

“Your dog understands something we’re still processing,” I’d tell their owners with a smile. “These aren’t just sculptures. They’re presence-holders.”

A dear friend of mine, who spends her time so wisely guiding people to deepen their relationship with the natural world, listened graciously to my stories over the phone one evening and offered an observation that became part of my deeper appreciation for the project as a whole. ‘There’s such simplicity within the complexity of this endeavor.” Strip away all the logistics, all the coordination, all the international collaboration — and you’re left with the most elemental human experience: standing in the presence of something magnificent that asks that you be. Be present.

Lives Transformed

A family discovered Matt on a particularly warm afternoon — our biggest tusker. Matt was modeled and named after one of the largest tuskers in Kenya, a legend who had been monitored by Save the Elephants for years, his GPS collar helping reveal crucial insights into elephant migration patterns. His magnificent presence commanded respect from even the most hurried passersby. The children sprawled beneath him, their laughter mixing with Los Angeles traffic sounds, while parents pulled out snacks and water bottles.

‘He’s keeping us safe,’ one little girl announced with the certainty that only children possess, positioned delightfully directly under Matt’s chin beneath his gorgeously curved tusks.

Matt | @Sarah Jacobson | African Geographic

Logans daily pilgrimage

Most afternoons around 2:00, I’d spot Logan making his way down the street with purposeful stride. This LA native and tour guide had developed what could only be called a friendship with “Little Mango,” one of our youngest elephants, whose placement along his daily route made their connection inevitable.

“Just checking in on my buddy,” he’d say with a grin, pulling out his phone for what he’d taken to calling his daily sELEfy. Their ritual never varied: Logan would position himself beside the small elephant, both facing the camera, and smile as if greeting an old friend.

“The tourists love hearing about the elephants,” he told me one afternoon, “but honestly, I come here for me. Little Mango reminds me that even in the middle of all this” — he gestured at the busy street, “there’s still room for wonder.”

Peanut’s Guardian

One afternoon, a gentleman approached with barely contained joy, explaining he had purchased “Peanut” and was hoping to see her before the exhibition ended. Together, we navigated through the herd until I spotted her — sweet Peanut, standing with quiet dignity among her larger companions.

When I pointed her out, his face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. He approached slowly, almost reverently, running his hands along her woven trunk. “She’s perfect,” he whispered, already envisioning where she would stand in his garden.

“You’re becoming part of the coexistence story,” I told him, “keeping the conversation alive long after the exhibition ends.”

When the Universe Whispers

One afternoon, visiting not as guardian but as guest, I sat among the herd with a dear film/tv director friend, sipping our iced coffees in the quiet spaces between tourists. She filmed the elephants around us, these beauties holding court in their temporary home. Later, reviewing the video, my heart stopped. There captured in frame, was the nameplate of one elephant: “Nena.”

My mother’s name. My own matriarch, who had passed from this world… reflected back to me through a herd led by matriarchs.

In that moment, I understood something deeper about the reciprocal unfolding between awareness, our ancestors, and the living world. This wasn’t coincidence — it was conversation. The universe speaking in the language it knows best: connection across time, species, and the thin veil between worlds. Here, on ancestral lands that hold their own memory of relationship between human and more-than-human worlds, a subtle wink reminded me that we are never separate from the web of life that surrounds us.

The elephants weren’t just holding space for conservation education, they were holding space for recognition, for the ancient knowing that our ancestors walk with us still, especially when we’re paying attention to the world’s quiet communications.

A Conversation That Changed Everything

During one of my regular talks, I noticed him listening from the periphery, he had such a chill and curious vibe. When I finished explaining about lantana and conservation, he stepped closer.

“You know,” he said quietly, “in Kenya, where I am from, we have similar challenges with invasive plants. But we also have the real elephants.”

Something in his voice made me shift from teacher to student. “Tell us about that. Tell us about coexistence where the elephants are living, breathing beings.”

His words carried the weight of lived experience — growing up in the shadow of living elephants, learning ancient protocols of when to retreat, how to read landscape for signs of their passage, the daily responsibility of territorial negotiation with beings whose footsteps reshape the earth.

“True coexistence requires respect that comes from understanding your place in the ecosystem,” he told our small group. “For people surrounded by concrete, this might be their only chance to feel what it means to stand near something so much larger than themselves.”

The visitors fell silent, absorbing not just his words but his presence — someone who knew elephants as neighbors rather than abstractions.

Nena & Nena | The GEM 2025

The Deeper Truth

I witnessed young visitors complete their ritual communion through photos, tentative touches, and finally full embraces of the woven forms. When they’d step back, eyes bright with something newly awakened, they’d announce: “They’re very real to me!”

Perhaps nothing captured this blurred boundary more perfectly than the morning I watched a small bird perch atop one of the tuskers, as natural as any scene from the African savanna. The bird, unburdened by human categories of “real” versus “replica,” had simply recognized a suitable perch. In that moment, Los Angeles wildlife claimed these sculptures as part of their own landscape.

bird presence | The GEM 2025

Rivers of Impact

The financial ecosystem moved like seasonal rivers toward conservation organizations protecting the spectacular journeys that migratory animals make across continents, skies, and oceans. This wasn’t just fundraising through art — it was indigenous knowledge systems reaching across oceans to touch urban hearts, generating millions to power human-wildlife coexistence projects worldwide.

The passing of Wallis Annenberg during the exhibit’s final weeks cast a different shadow across my rounds. Her philanthropy had helped bring these elephants to life, and even as our sculptures prepared for departure, construction crews were finishing the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — a living monument arching over Southern California’s busiest freeway, allowing mountain lions and deer to reclaim ancestral pathways.

Beyond Captivity’s Shadow

This exhibit offered something traditional zoos could never provide: communion with wildness without the weight of confinement. Here, elephants existed without bars, without the heavy sadness that clings to captive animals. Visitors absorbed the same lessons a zoo promises — understanding, empathy, connection to wildlife — but through a medium that celebrated rather than caged.

The knowledge transferred here was cellular, ancestral — how to feel connected in the presence of the magnificent.

The Lasting Migration

As the elephants prepared for departure, I understood that the real transformation had already taken root. Friends had texted breathlessly throughout the exhibit’s run: “There are elephants in Los Angeles!” But more than wonder, their messages carried understanding: that sharing space with our world wildlife, plants and all beings was possible.

Even after the installation closed, the magic persisted. A friend DM’d me a few days later: she had spotted the elephants loaded onto trucks, traveling toward their forever homes. “I saw them on the freeway!” she wrote with the excitement of witnessing an actual elephant migration. These sculptures had become so real in collective consciousness that even their departure felt like a wildlife sighting.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing | @Ami Vitale

Seeds in Unlikely Soil

The Great Elephant Migration reminded me daily that conservation isn’t just about protecting wilderness — it’s about cultivating connection where most people actually live their lives. My role as guardian taught me that the best public art doesn’t just occupy space — it creates space. Space for wonder, for learning, for conversations between strangers gathered around something beautiful.

Long after the last sculpture departed these ancestral lands, their impact will continue to germinate through the community they temporarily called home. Like the best public art, they left the landscape forever changed — not physically, but in the expanding consciousness of those who walked among them and felt the ancient stirring of reverence for the wild world we share.

In a world increasingly hungry for authentic connection to the natural world, these woven ambassadors showed us a path forward — one where art, science, and human consciousness intertwine like the lantana fibers that gave them form. Where ancestors walk with us. Where the earth speaks back. Where paying attention to the subtle communications of the universe opens us to the reciprocal relationship that has always been our birthright.

Trunks up! addison