Swansea will be a stranger place this Saturday (May 10th, 1pm). Don’t be alarmed if you happen to come across a herd of elephants parading through the city centre, with trumpeters and drummers beating a path from the train station to Swansea Museum.
As part of his project for Art Across the City 2014, Thomas Goddard has worked with over 100 participants at Swansea Museum, creating a vast array of elephant masks and banners, inspired by the legend of Lizzie the elephant who lived under the stairs at Swansea Museum for over 50 years. Thomas began his workshops with the story of Lizzie and an interactive learning session all about elephants.
Thomas’ work titled, ‘The Life, Death and Afterlife of Lizzie the Elephant’, is about the legendary Swansea elephant who died of colic in Llansawel and was sold to Swansea Museum in 1889. The carcass of the elephant was then taken down to Swansea where a carpenter from Cardiff, a taxidermist from Bridgend and a butcher from Swansea worked together to taxidermy the elephant that stood in Swansea Museum until it was hit by parts of the door when a bomb came through the door during World War II. Lizzie was stitched back up and is lovingly remembered by children of the time who stroked her for luck on the way to exams which took place in the museum. Her demise occurred after a new curator found traces of arsenic in Lizzie and made a funeral pyre for her in the garden of the museum in 1954.
Thomas placed a series of ‘circus’ banners in front of Swansea museum along with producing a ‘golden ticket’ to participants, but the procession is open to all to join in, especially if dressed as an elephant. Masks will be available at the starting point just before 1pm.
The procession will begin at Swansea Railway station and continue down the high street, past Swansea Castle, through Castle Gardens and the Quadrant towards Swansea bus station, taking in some of the Art Across the City public artworks along the way. The procession will carry on over the footbridge to LC2, towards the National Waterfront Museum, and on to Swansea Museum where Lizzie the elephant lived.
The grand finale to our elephant procession, will involve a big group photograph of everyone, standing in front of Swansea museum all dressed up as elephants, and this photograph will be framed and live in the museum near to where Lizzie once lived.
