Portrait 03 · The resident herd

Prishti

Identity confirmed by certificate

Role: Adolescent
Say it: PRISH-tee
Meaning: Ray of light

An adolescent called “ray of light,” growing into a life of movement, learning, and relationship.

Begin the story

PRISHTI · PORTRAIT 03
THE RESIDENT HERD

An elephant is a person

A ray of light, still becoming.

Prishti is a real wild elephant, known as an individual in the Nilgiri landscape and translated into sculptural form by the people who share that landscape.

Prishti is identified in the family records as an adolescent. This is a season of learning: reading the herd, the landscape, and the subtle negotiations that allow elephants and people to share space.

Her name means “ray of light.” The supplied certificate confirms her identity and life stage; a more complete personal history will be added only when it can be grounded in field observations.

Letters from the Nilgiris

A friendship,
carried across continents.

“You’d hear it too, just under your feet.”

— Padiri, writing to Janet Ayers for the herd

Janet Ayers, who owns and cares for the four sculptures, received a series of letters inviting her to know each elephant as an individual, not an emblem. They also record a 5,000-mile migration that raised more than $5 million for coexistence projects and supports long-term, well-paid work for more than 300 Indigenous artisans.

Selected archival pages are shown here. A page containing a private mailing address has intentionally been omitted.

Handwritten letter from Padiri, signed for Muniya, Prishti, and Uma too

PADIRI’S LETTER · TAP TO READ

Closing letter from the Great Elephant Migration and the Real Elephant Collective

THE GREAT ELEPHANT MIGRATION · ARCHIVE

The archive · portrait 03

Certificate
of Authenticity.

This original record pairs the sculpture with Prishti, a real adolescent of the Nilgiri Hills, and documents the Adivasi communities and lantana material behind the work.

View the full certificate ↗

ARCHIVAL REFERENCE · TAP TO ENLARGE

Real counterpart

Every sculpture begins with an elephant observed in the wild, never an anonymous archetype.

Indigenous makers

Soliga, Bettakurumba, Kattunayakan, and Paniya artisans bring lived knowledge of elephants to every form.

Restorative material

Lantana camara is removed from forest habitat and transformed into an intricate, life-size work.

LANTANA

The material

A weed becomes a messenger.

Lantana camara is an invasive plant that can outcompete native vegetation and diminish wildlife habitat. In the hands of the Coexistence Collective, its woody stems become skin, gesture, weight, and memory.

The making supports skilled livelihoods while the removal of lantana helps open space in the forest—a material expression of coexistence rather than a decoration about it.

The invitation

“Humans are not separate from nature, but woven into it.”

The herd asks a practical and generous question: how might we make room for wild lives wherever we are?