In October of 2019 these images were exhibited at Christie’s in Los Angeles to raise funds for the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) and their continued commitment to elephant conservation.
DSWF funds a number of initiatives related to elephant protection including rescuing and rehabilitating elephant orphans; human-elephant conflict mitigation measures; alternative livelihood schemes; monitoring and research; and demand reduction of ivory. To learn more visit davidshepherd.org/elephants/how-dswf-is-protecting-elephants.
The title The End of Ivory - a statement of intent of a hopeful future - also alludes to a desire to not objectify elephants as an assembly of products. The imagery seeks to portray elephants in quiet refuge - places fast disappearing - where they are simply elephants, devoid of labels. Not ivory, not endangered, not relevant or poignant or charismatic because they are “like humans” in how they bond, play, mourn and love. But just elephants in all their wonderful elephant-ness.
When I look at these images, I can hear again a soft wind blowing, the rumbling of familial bonds, a splosh of mud. I can smell the potpourri of dried herbs - wild sage, berries, bark, seeds and kernels, a plethora of flowers like tamboti and acacia - that sometimes wafts from their dried dung and seems to linger for months after they’ve moved on.
These elephants who have survived everything - civil wars, poaching, separation, decimation - have eked out a living in places that by all accounts should not even have elephants anymore. I see these elephants, and I am hopeful of returning to a space where we might consider them on their own terms, simply as beings born on this earth, equally deserving of their place as we all are.
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