Elefanten

The story of elephants is the story of humanity – and vice versa. For humans, the heaviest land mammal is everything at once: a status symbol and a source of meat, a tool of war and a working animal, a resource for raw materials and an entertainer, a trophy and a dream image, a monster and a mascot. With their gentle yet irritable nature, their powerful mass on column-like yet soft-footed legs, and their skin that ranges from centimeters thick to paper-thin, elephants embody the contradictions of life. In his tender yet illuminating portrait, Rüdiger Schaper follows the winding paths of real and imaginary trunked animals through cultural and natural history, debunking the notion of the bull in a china shop as well as the misleading term "thick-skinned." He sways high in Thailand on an elephant, and with the animals displayed as sensations in front of him, he leaves no doubt that it is we who can learn from elephants, not the other way around. The interaction with elephants has something immensely liberating about it: it powerfully reflects back on oneself.