Ayşe Erkmen, Lonesome George, 2020 @museum.de

For fourteen years, Lonely George, the loneliest snail in the world, lived in a laboratory on Hawaii. For this entire period, scientists tried unsuccessfully to find it a mate. When he died in 2019, the species he belonged to, Achatinella apexfulva, died out with him. Erkmen’s Lonesome George is the smallest sculpture ever to be shown at the Skulpturenpark Köln. Her work makes reference to species extinction and also acts as a memorial to the mollusk, which attracted a great deal of attention, albeit futile, once he became the sole representative of his kind.

Over the course of two years, the smallest sculpture in the Skulpturenpark Köln was encapsulated by the London plane tree (Platanus hispanica) and embedded in the tree. Lonesome George exists on, protected and invisible inside the tree in the sculpture park.

Ayşe Erkmen

Lonesome George, 2020

Bronze

Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln