Photo: C. Allain / APEI / 20 Minutes

I am not entirely sure that I get the joke.  In a year when sperm whales have been washing up dead on shores around the world; dying after ingesting plastic, fishing nets and auto parts; the arrival of a beached sperm whale made entirely of plastic on a river bank near Rennes, France, seems less thought-provoking that simply poor timing. The 15′ long resin sperm whale, or cachalot plastique, if you prefer, is the work of the Captain Boomer collective based in Belgium. Why? Captain Boomer’s explanation from their website:

“A life-size, hyperreal statue of a sperm whale beaches on the shores and river banks of the old world… A black giant with jaws wide open, eyeing the sky. A dumb question from the sea to man. A riddle from the deep. The beaching of a whale has always been a magical event. Villages trembled and were exhilarated when it happened. This is what we reconstruct. At the same time the beached whale is a gigantic methaphor for the disruption of our ecological system. People feel their bond with nature is disturbed. The game between fiction and reality reinforces this feeling of disturbance.”

In January, 13 dead and very real sperm whales washed up on beaches in Germany. Sadly, a “gigantic metaphor for the disruption of our ecological system” seems unnecessary when we already have so many non-metaphoric examples close at hand.

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.