For so many of us, the first week of December means a pilgrimage to Florida for Art Basel Miami Beach. But this year a herd of 100 wooden elephants are joining the party as the conservationist-minded “The Great Elephant Migration” has made its way to the sand.

The life-size sculptures are each modeled on a single elephant, mostly from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in southern India. They are the work of the Coexistence Collective, a group of 200 local indigenous artisans. Designed by Shubhra Nayar, they are made from Lantana camara, an invasive weed that threatens to destroy the natural habitat of Indian elephants.

After beginning its U.S. tour this summer in Newport, Rhode Island, where they roamed along coastal cliffs near Gilded Age mansions, the herd spent much of the fall in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, strolling through the Cobblestone streets. But on the beach in South Florida, they provide an even more dramatic spectacle against the backdrop of bright blue skies and sparkling turquoise waters.

“It’s so beautiful to see people barefoot in the herd,” Ruth Ganesh, the organizer of the roving art project, told me. “And elephants are nature’s greatest masterpiece. They’re like a surrealistic dream.”

“The Great Elephant Migration” in Miami Beach. Photo by Lee Smith.

So far the reception has been enthusiastic – perhaps a little too enthusiastic. A breathless Page Six Exclusively reported that a security guard caught a couple having sex on one of the elephants. There have been no arrests, but Miami Beach police are now patrolling the facility to ensure the thousands of visitors behave.

“We knew people would love them, but we didn’t think they would take it so literally!” said Ganesh. “My question is how? They have very bony ridges on their backs!”

Ganesh started the traveling art project as part of her work with the Real Elephant Collective, a nonprofit organization she co-founded with elephant researcher and scientist Tarsh Thekaekara. All elephant sculptures are for sale. The proceeds go to 22 partner non-governmental organizations or NGOs to protect elephants, but also other species. The aim is to promote a mutually beneficial coexistence between people and nature.

“The Great Elephant Migration” in Miami Beach. Photo by Lee Smith.

“I am very proud of the indigenous artists who have captured Miami’s attention,” Ganesh said, noting that the collective is a well-paying job for a community that typically earns low wages on nearby tea plantations. “There are now 20 different villages with small workshops and they all make elephants. And they know the elephants. These communities actually know how to live with the elephants and that rewards them for their ability to live together.”

So far, 250 sculptures have been sold and have been left behind as the herd makes its way up the East Coast. Prices range from $8,000 for a baby elephant to $22,000 for an adult, tusked male that reaches a maximum height of 15 feet. (Ganesh recommends bringing the works indoors for the winter, but you can also cover them with a tarp.)

If you don’t have enough space for a life-sized elephant either indoors or outdoors, you can also support the cause by purchasing a bottle of the project’s signature scent. Coexistence from Italian perfume house Xerjoff costs €250 ($263) per bottle, with part of the proceeds going to NGOs. The luxury brand is a sponsor of the Miami exhibition.

“The Great Elephant Migration” in Miami Beach. Photo by Lee Smith.

“The perfume was made from flowers that you would find in the habitat of an Indian elephant, so it has notes of jasmine and damask rose,” Ganesh said.

(When I asked Sergio Momo, Xerjoff’s founder and creative director, if he was worried that people might be confused and think the perfume smelled more like elephants than their habitat, Momo told me that King Charles made the same joke when the artwork was shown (View in London in 2021.)

In Miami, the elephants on the beach are joined by 46 3D-printed stars that are laid out in a star shape on the sand. The artwork titled Miami Reef Staris the work of the artist Carlos Betancourt and the architect Alberto Latorre. It’s a prototype underwater sculpture that will be the first piece of the ReefLine, a seven-mile-long artificial reef and sculpture park planned for Miami Beach.

Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre, Miami Reef Star (2024), representation. Image by Mateo Rembe, courtesy of ReefLine.

When The Great Elephant Migration planned its trip to Florida, ReefLine, which aims to restore Miami Beach’s depleted coral reefs, was a natural partner.

“For us it’s about the water. It’s about the country. And we both care about preservation. That’s why we decided to join forces,” Ximena Caminos, founder and artistic director of ReefLine, told me. (The overarching presentation, which also included Daniel Buren regatta on Perez Art Museum Miamiis called a “star compass.”)

The ReefLine is funded in part with a $5 million grant provided by Miami Beach taxpayers who approved new funding for arts and culture in 2022.

The first work, Concrete coral by Leandro Erlich is scheduled to be sunk 600 feet offshore, 20 feet below the waves, in the spring of 2025. The sculpture of 22 cars is a new interpretation of the sandcastle traffic jam the artist created on the beach for Miami Art Week 2019.

Leandro Erlich, Concrete coralRendering. Image courtesy of ReefLine.

The individual arts of Miami Reef Star are designed to mimic the natural habitat of native fish, creating cozy nooks and crannies in which to hide from predators.

Both works are made from CarbonXinc, a newly developed eco-friendly concrete, and utilize Coral-Lok technology, where lab-grown corals can literally be put into art to boost reef growth.

Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre, Miami Reef Star (2024), representation. Image by Mateo Rembe, courtesy of ReefLine.

“We start with soft corals called gorgonians. These are something like sea fans that sway with the waves. “It is the predominant type of marine life found in the few areas that still have nearshore reefs in Miami,” said marine biologist Colin Foord, founder of Coral Morphologic, the multimedia aquaculture studio and science laboratory in Miami that produces the will breed corals. told me.

After the party in Miami Beach is over, “The Great Elephant Migration” goes back on tour. In April we’re going to Hermann Park in Houston, Texas. Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana in May; Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in June; and concludes his trip in July in Los Angeles.

“The Great Elephant Migration” will be on view on the beach between 36th and 37th Streets in Miami Beach, Florida, December 2-8, 2024.