A Different Lens

Thirty minutes before the open air cinema showing of Dirty Dancing, I lost myself in Luxembourg. I’d been hunting elephant sculptures since early afternoon; part of an international conservation project, the motley creatures grazed in the city’s gardens and shop walkways. Determined to find all fifty-five before Swayze took to the screen in the Square, I’d fast-tracked the search, snapping only a picture or two with each elephant.

Darkness closed in as I wandered the cobbled backstreets of the city. No one spoke English. A passing security guard responded to my halted ‘je suis pingu’ with one raised eyebrow and two shrugged shoulders. ‘Le pont de suicide’ glared from the horizon – I was heading in the right direction. All I needed was an elephant I recognised, a landmark to get my bearings.

Ten minutes to show time I stumbled across ‘Ein Herz für Elefanten’. I hadn’t taken a photo of it earlier in the day – just cast an appreciative eye over the wrought-iron framework, the way the light dappled through the cutaway spaces between the welded disks. I’d found Old Elefanten at the start of the hunt, far from the Square where Baby was surely carrying a watermelon by now. Frustrated, I perched on the base of the sculpture and opened Google Maps. I would cheer on Baby and Johnny with two hundred plus Luxembourgers, data roaming charges be damned.

It was only then that I noticed the heart. Inverted in the elephant’s flank, it bloomed a little bigger than the nearby ear, shadowed black against the silver. A small plaque gleamed by the elephant’s feet: ‘The translucent, dissolving “skin” of the sculpture represents the disappearing of this species. The discs symbolize the globe, which is imbued with worldwide heart’.

Alone with an elephant while Baby fought her corner, I thought about the sculptures I photographed that morning; the street musician I papped outside Woolworths; the polaroid of Edmund Klein Park I’d been using as a bookmark. These wonders I had seen through a camera shutter and promptly forgotten. I pressed my palm into the elephant’s heart. Let the chill filter through my fingertips. It felt like mourning.

The Luxembourg elephants have since been auctioned for charity, but Brazil are set to host the 2015 exhibition. If you find yourself near Florianópolis in November, be sure to track the elephants down. Spread the search out over a day or two. Take your time. A camera, too – but remember to look with your eyes, not just through a lens.