The Elephant in the Room is a 300×200 cm painting by Zambian artist Silvester Mali, digitized into an interactive artwork. Created in collaboration with Hack The Planet and Gonarezhou National Park, it invites viewers to experience and reflect on the multi-layered issues of human–elephant conflict.

Immersive Narrative Structure

• Introduction: An elephant trapped inside a crumbling room symbolizes a problem too big to ignore.
• Historical Range: A split timeline contrasts once-vast elephant habitats with today's fragmented landscapes consumed by cities, roads, and mining.
• Today in Gonarezhou: Elephants thrive inside the park, but face farmland encroachment to the west and poaching risks to the east.
• Corridors & Connectivity: Visualizes the promise—and complexity—of transfrontier conservation areas.
• Overcrowding vs. Poaching: Highlights modern threats, including habitat strain from dense elephant populations.
• Environmental Impact: One scene shows the collapse of a venerable baobab under intense elephant pressure, with cascading effects on wildlife.
• Human Impact: Shows crop destruction and community fear where elephants stray into villages.
• Livelihoods & Benefits: Illustrates jobs from tourism, hunting, and conservation, but also uneven distribution among 80,000+ local residents.
• Contrasting Perspectives: Compares elephant admiration from afar with farmers living next door.
• Management Strategies: Explores options including translocation, birth control (via darted vaccine), and controversial culling, each with limitations and broader implications.

Why This Matters

This project weaves art, ecology, and community into a cohesive experience. It doesn't offer simple answers—but rather illuminates the tensions between conservation goals, human livelihoods, ecological health, and ethical decision-making.

Experience & Engage

Dive into the interactive painting online to explore each visual scene. Witness the complexity of coexistence and consider how connected landscapes, policy, and community action might shape a better future for elephants and people alike.

The Making Of