Rise of the Elephants

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In October 2015, I joined an illustration competition named Rise of the Elephant held by Frank & co. and LEBE (Let Elephants Be Elephants) Foundation in collaboration with Kreavi. I won the competition.

The brief was to make an illustration about endangered elephants—especially Asian elephants—as part of the LEBE campaign. I made three illustrations and submitted them all. Eventually one of my illustrations (entitled: Moment of Extinction) was picked as one of the twelve winners. My illustration along with other eleven illustrations were printed on Frank & co. 2016 calendar and journal. In addition to the calendar and journal, I also got two notes containing messages from Nadya Hutagalung, Frank & co.'s brand ambassador, LEBE co-founder, as well as famous Asian supermodel, actress, entertainer, entrepreneur, TV host, and environmentalist.

The competition itself is a part of a campaign to save the endangered Asian elephants. The participants have to submit the illustrations by uploading them through their social media accounts and share them with the hashtag #RiseOfTheElephants to raise awareness of the declining population of the Asian elephants.

The winning illustration, Moment of Extinction and the two other illustrations I made, Mommy, Where is My Elephant? and The Cause is Clear: Act Now! are shown below.

Moment of Extinction

This artwork illustrates a denotative-metaphorical condition of Sumatran elephants that are on the brink of extinction. The decadence of irresponsible human in the illegal elephant ivory poaching has made the species become endangered. This illustration shows an elephant sitting on an escalator that brings the elephant to a cliff where the elephant can’t help himself to survive. Its tusks are taken for an amount of money. This problem needs to be fixed as soon as possible, therefore it can prevent the Sumatran elephants’ extinction.

The Cause Is Clear: Act Now!

Above all things, we, human, are the main cause of the declining population of elephants, including Asian elephants. It is us who take responsibilities of their soon-to-be-extinction. Not only because of the slaughter done by those ruthless people, but also because of us, who indirectly pay no attention to the phenomenon. Yet it is also us who should be the one to protect the species. The cause is clear; the force is in our hand. Together we can keep the elephants safe. Act now!

Mommy, Where Is My Elephant?

This illustration depicts the further effect of the threatened population of Sumatran Elephant (and other Asian elephants), which might be extinct in 2020. Inspired by Shigeo Fukuda and using Gestalt’s figure-ground and closure principle, this illustration simply tells us about some time in the future after the (hopefully not) extinction of the elephant, a child asks his mom about where did all the elephants go, “Where is my elephant? How do they look like?”

The two hands (the mother’s and the child’s) form a silhouette of an elephant which means that indirectly, we take part of the extinction because of our unawareness and passiveness of such problem. The use of red and white as dominant colors is a response of the disappointment and concerns about this problem that occurs in Indonesia. The child’s thumbnail also serves as the elephant’s tusk, implying that both are made from the same substance: keratin. (Well, just imagine how painful it is if your nails are taken forcefully.)