climate
Antwerp art collective Captain Boomer has had a giant sperm whale ‘washed up’ on the Australian coast in Glenelg as part of an arts festival. With the installation, the collective wants to draw attention to the climate and nature.
“Our sperm whale just ‘washed up’ on the beach,” Bart Van Peel of Captain Boomer tells our sister newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen in a video call from Australia. “Several actors play researchers and pretend to perform the usual tests on the sperm whale. We do this in collaboration with the prestigious and well-known arts festival Adelaide in Australia. They had been fans of our work for some time.”
At night, Captain Boomer’s team started building the immense statue. “It must have worked out well, because many spectators believe it is a real sperm whale,” says Bart. “We always like to make people doubt. It is a kind of primal beast that comes out of the sea and throws itself at our feet. “I can’t take it anymore,” is what he wants to tell us. It is a tragic and continually moving image. We play a game between fiction and reality.”
With this installation the art collective wants to convey that the bond between people and nature has been disrupted. “There is something seriously wrong in the world,” says Bart. “Many visitors see our sperm whale as a metaphor for the climate and biodiversity crisis. As artists, we support the fight for the climate, but we are not activists. Our intention is to make people think about things. We also want to surprise them and make them feel.”
Captain Boomer was able to reach many spectators on the first day. “It’s a bomb,” says Bart enthusiastically. “Thousands of people have already come to watch and we have also been featured on almost all national channels and in all newspapers.” The Australian festival lasts until March 17.
Artist group Captain Boomer is also no stranger to their home city of Antwerp. On the Left Bank they have already ‘released’ their sperm whale and they have often been seen during the Summer of Antwerp. The installation has also previously stopped in Paris, Warsaw and London, among others.
