Flora Damon
PANGOLIN
PANGOLIN
"The Pangolin" is a paper exploration of the unique fragility of nature, and the direct human impact on its survival.
fabricated with 600 paper scales and a delicate tissue-paper paper-mache body, this beautiful, bone-white form brightens the space around it.
When standing on a surface, the feel of the warm paper, and the surprising hardness of the folds present a well-protected animal, the scales growing larger from the back and tapering to the front. 7 lbs of the animal body presses into the ground through the paper, reflecting the weight of the chinese pangolin. Lining the interior is a heavy-weight shell of 1.5" dense paper, furthur hardening the form into a scaly shelled animal.
The form accurately depicts the likness of the pangolin, in all its bright light.
At nearly 40 Inches long, the hollow form lumbers along its chosen surface.
"What a quiet and lumbering gentle giant."
A lifted pangolin.
Being the most trafficked animal in the world, its populations have reduced to mere numbers, many species endangered and threatened.
Depicted here is the scene of a poacher, wearing a jade ring reflective of the pangolin's high price, and at contrast to the pangolin's bone-white body.
If you choose to lift the form from its lumbering state, the rigor mortis of the immovable body despite the warmth of the paper creates a sense of guilt.
Lifting the pangolin from their tails feels like you're carrying a badly behaved and unwanted thing.
It's no longer an individual, but a faceless number on a chart, a data point on the internet, the feeling of paper cash instead of a cold dead body.
And in its hollow form, we too can see the empty belief of its percieved medicinal value.
It does not have any.
Where do we draw the line on tradition, when it reduces our world to the confines of numbered paper?