Elephant in the Room Talkbox
The Next Earth, Palazzo Diedo, Venice, 2025
Project Team:
Rania Ghosn + El Hadi Jazairy
Monica Hutton, Anhong Li
Venue:
Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, Venice
On view:
May 10 – November 23, 2025
Curators:
Nicholas de Monchaux & Ana Miljacki
Elephant in the Room is a speculative ecofeminist fable for the climate crisis. The project addresses the elephant in the room—the climate crisis—by telling the story of one elephant who takes action to combat environmental injustice and climate change. The American Museum of Natural History in New York contains famous taxidermy dioramas, many of which were ‘collected’ (read killed) on the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition (1909-1910). The African Elephant Matriarch comes to life and storms out of the museum to stampede through the streets and protest patriarchy and networks of fossil-fuel funding. The pair of drawings is shot/countershot diorama setup. The 6-minute fable is written and visualized by Design Earth and narrated, in rhyming verse, by Donna Haraway.
Click for more information about the Elephant in the Room project.