Big Baby Animal

Oryan Galster

About two years ago, a 30,000-year-old mummified baby woolly mammoth was found in the Yukon region of northwest Canada during excavations carried out by local miners. Frozen in permafrost during the Ice Age, it was exceptionally well-preserved and almost intact, down to the skin and fur.
The cub, about a month old at the time of its death, was given the name Big Baby Animal.
The installation consists of a wooden skeleton covered by synthetic fur. Inside is a mechanism that simulates breathing. In addition to the impressive size of the baby mammoth, the transition from 2D to 3D and back again raises questions about the states of life and death, and the possibility of an in-between. Is this object breathing its first breaths or its last?