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Animals walk across continents
These puppets are making a 20,000km journey. They began their trip in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the 9th April. The puppets are a piece of artwork which is called The Herds.
The project warns us about climate change. It shows animals running away from their homes due to the problem. The project organiser, David Lan, explains how the number of animals grows as it goes along.
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."
The group arrived in London after moving north, through Spain and France. Many humans escape their home countries on the same route.
The puppets are made of materials like cardboard, which are biodegradable. But the artists also had to use rubber parts, to let the animals move.
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."
Soon the animal puppets will stop in Norway, to visit the ancient Sami people. In August, they'll complete their amazing journey in the Arctic Circle.
The artistic director of the project describes The Herds as an important warning. Its aim is to call for real change to stop the climate crisis. It hopes people across the world will do something.
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