The fragmentation of natural habitats from human causes, such as barbed wire fencing, walls, roads, highways, and housing, disturb the natural movement of wild animals. Today, with the effects of global warming, the fauna is also often trapped between fences and wildfires. In 2019, wildfires were catastrophic in the Amazon rainforest, the boreal forest of Siberia, as well as forests in California, Australia and Africa. The fires increase the sense of urgency to an already dramatic extinction crisis. According to a recent United Nations report, our planet is facing the extinction of over one million species.

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Thousands of wild animals from different species die every year trying to cross barbed wired fencing in search of water, food, refuge, and a safe place to raise their young. The work, The Extinction Rituals: Fragmentation, presents a formation of 70 to 100 sculptures with iron bases, each holding antelope skulls with horns from Africa. Barbed wire will be tangled in each set of horns.

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The African fauna is symbolic because of its beauty, variety and its continuous link to our primordial past. On the continent of Africa, the diversity of antelope is enormous. The shapes of the antelope’s horns are as exotic as the name of each species: bongo, impala, sitatunga, kudu, nyala, gerenuk, oryx, lechwe, sable, bontebok, topi, tsessebe, and many more.

 

For the most dramatic impact, the height of each skull’s eye sockets will match the eye level of the average human, around 165cm (5’4”). About 20 different species of antelope will be represented. All of the skulls will have legal import documentation from Africa. The skulls were donated by a taxidermist from his collection of unclaimed skulls collected over the last half century.