Captive elephants exhibit what biologists refer to as stereotypy, which includes rhythmic rocking, head bobbing, stepping back and forth, and pacing.
Colleen Plumb traveled to over seventy zoos in the US and Europe, and created video featuring dozens of captive elephants in their small enclosures. She has photographed her guerrilla public projections of the video in over 100 locations worldwide.
Thirty Times a Minute (Radius Books, 2020) includes a selection of these photos, along with nine contributions from animal rights activists and scientists, in order to examine the way animals in captivity function as colonialist symbols of human domination over nature.
Colleen Plumb is a Chicago based artist who makes photographs and videos that explore the ambivalence and contradiction in our relationships with non-human animals.
Mark Molloy is the reviews editor at MAKE: A Literary Magazine.
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