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.
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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.​
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"What a quiet and lumbering gentle giant."
A lifted pangolin.
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Being the most trafficked animal in the world, its populations have reduced to mere numbers, many species endangered and threatened.
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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.
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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.
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Lifting the pangolin from their tails feels like you're carrying a badly behaved and unwanted thing.
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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.
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And in its hollow form, we too can see the empty belief of its percieved medicinal value.
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It does not have any.
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Where do we draw the line on tradition, when it reduces our world to the confines of numbered paper?