`The Herds' puppets take climate change message to Lagos, Nigeria
Life-sized puppets of animals like elephant and giraffe are trekking from Africa to the Arctic Circle to raise awareness.
Two of the South African puppeteers, Craig Leo (left) and Siphokazi Mpofu (right), working on a prototype of a kudu.
Zain Johnson in for CapeTalk’s Sara-Jayne Makwala King is joined on Weekend Breakfast by Siphokazi Mpofu, puppetry designer and performer involved with 'The Herds'.
Listen below:
With many people and animals losing their homes in floods and fires `The Herds' public art project calls on communities to take climate action.
The life-sized animal puppets made mainly from recycled material will travel 20,000km from the Congo to the Arctic Circle.
They are the brainchild of The Walk Productions, a UK-based not for profit company and were designed by Artistic Director Amir Nizar Zubai and Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective in Cape Town.
One of the South African designers and performers, Mpofu says they have been received well in Lagos.
"What we did here on the first day, we gathered the young people, the participants that we are teaching how to control these animals so we can walk in the streets of Lagos with the animals. And we're also working with dancers from the local communities."
- Siphokazi Mpofu, puppetry designer and performer
Mpofu says they currently have 50 puppets but hope to grow that number to 600. Art colleges and universities on the route are involved. Some animal puppets will join in their local habitat like wolves in Spain and reindeer in Norway.
Lagos is `The Herds' second stop, Dakar is next.
The project is supported by WWF ahead of the COP30 UN climate conference in Brazil in November.
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the discussion.