Parisians had a bit of a shock last Friday when the corpse of a sperm whale was “beached” on the shore of the Seine near Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.
Turns out… the whale was a statue. The ultra-realistic whale was created by the Belgian artist collective Captain Boomer. The group has created seven beached whales in cities across Europe, including their first project in Rennes, France.
According to their website, the whales are “a gigantic methaphor [sic] for the disruption of our ecological system.” And it’s pretty true: there’s nothing more shocking, or disturbing than a life-size dead whale in the middle of the city.
However horrific the fake beached whale was, the background of the Notre Dame and Ile de la Cité made for a beautiful, contrasting background to the art piece. Check it out in the video above.
