The Great Elephant Migration: A Family Gathering opened Oct. 10 in downtown Livermore, bringing life-size elephant sculptures to Bankhead Plaza and Stockmen’s Park. The free public exhibit is hosted by Three Thirty-Three Arts and Livermore Valley Arts and is scheduled to remain through Dec. 6, the organizers say. It is the project’s only planned West Coast stop this year, according to Pleasanton Weekly. The sculptures are set among the city’s shared public spaces, where visitors can encounter the installation without buying a ticket or entering a gallery.
The host describes the Livermore display as a smaller traveling herd carrying the larger project’s message of coexistence, in a format designed to bring the work to smaller communities, gardens and cultural spaces the flagship herd cannot reach. The sculptures are made from dried lantana, a flowering shrub organizers identify as invasive in India. Each sculpture is modeled on a real wild elephant from the Nilgiri Hills of southern India, an animal whose name and personality are known to the people who created the work. The plant material and animal forms connect the artwork to a specific landscape and the communities who live there.
The Great Elephant Migration’s Creatives page identifies the artisans as from the Bettakurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan and Soliga communities and describes them as working through The Real Elephant Collective. Pleasanton Weekly’s independent report also describes the artists as Indigenous artisans from the Nilgiri region. The event host describes the collective as a community-run enterprise and says this work offers an alternative to laboring on tea and coffee plantations while maintaining traditions. The Livermore hosts present the installation as both public art and an invitation to consider how people share space with wildlife.
That idea travels beyond the sculptures themselves. The exhibit’s organizers describe elephants and people in the Nilgiri Hills as neighbors in a closely shared landscape. Their project invites visitors to think about coexistence as a relationship, not only a conservation slogan. The display does not claim that an art installation in California will by itself change wildlife conditions in India; its stated role is to tell a story and bring the message to new audiences.
Livermore artists added another layer on opening day. Pleasanton Weekly reported that members of the Indian American Artists Association created original works for some of the elephants. Association co-founder Abhishek Nigam contributed “The Elephant Warrior’s Bandana,” a decorative piece inspired by a traditional head covering, especially one used on elephants in Hindu temples in India. His version uses plastic filaments and peacock feathers, the newspaper reported, translating that visual reference into a new sculpture adornment.
Artist Charmaine Hussain made “Mamta’s Mantle: Armored in Love,” a large piece of industrial house wrap that drapes over one elephant’s back. The local report said Hussain considered how a mother’s care for her child might extend to children of other species and to living things more broadly. The designs were shown on Oct. 10, giving local artists a direct role in how the traveling installation appears in Livermore, with interpretations grounded in the artists’ own cultural references.
The event’s organizers say the project also connects art sales with support for Indigenous livelihoods and coexistence work. Three Thirty-Three Arts reports that, since 2024, the broader Great Elephant Migration initiative has awarded $1.4 million to projects intended to help communities live alongside wildlife. That figure is the organizer’s account of its own program; the Livermore hosts do not present it as an outcome caused by this single stop. The event page also links the wider initiative to lantana removal and conversion into biochar as part of its restoration work, an organizer-described aim rather than a measured result from the Livermore display.
Organizers say the exhibit is free and accessible, and school groups are welcome. Elephant Guardians are available onsite most days from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to answer questions. Visitors may touch the sculptures gently but are asked not to climb, push or apply excessive force; leashed pets are welcome if kept close enough to protect the artwork. The event host says downtown Livermore has more than 1,200 free public parking spaces across the main city garages, with additional free spaces at city lots and on streets.
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