How would you feel if you saw a beached whale along a riverbank?
To commemorate the 2006 incident of a beached leviathan near Greenwich—when the mammal swam up river, got stranded and died—for the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, Belgian Art collective Captain Boomer created a life-sized, 17-meter (55-feet) long sculpture of a beached whale.
The beached whale sculpture popped up along the bank of River Thames, London.
Performers were also employed to pretend to be scientists ‘investigating’ the scene, and a team from the British Divers Marine Association were also on scene to answer questions.
“Over the last few years, we have been seeing more and more whales and dolphins around the coast of the British Isles,” Alan Knight, from British Divers Marine Life Rescue, told BBC. “The beaching of this model sperm whale at Greenwich is something that could happen.”
“If this were happening for real, we would do all in our power to avoid a whale of this type and size stranding by using a flotilla of boat to gently coax the whale out of the river.”
[via BBC]