From last summer, nearly 100 elephant sculptures have been on tour in various shopping malls in cities around the UK. The tour started in Watford, west London, and is due to finish at the end of July in Bromley, London. Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Norwich were other cities that the elephants visited in order to raise money for the charity to aid in elephant conservation. (For those interested, read my entry about the elephant parade in London in 2010: Parading Artistic Elephants in London - Jenikya's Blog.)
'We Love Mosha' by Diane Francis
I saw the elephants at Uxbridge, west London. Each of the fourteen cities hosted thirty elephants for approximately one month. I am assuming that different venues had a few different elephants while part of the herd was the same in all fourteen venues during their 2013-2014 tour. Unfortunately, the elephant parade's shop ran out of maps and postcards. Without this map (it was also not available online), I managed to track down 26 elephants, not including the smaller-sized elephants.
Various elephants in the 2013-2014 elephant parade
A few celebrities had a chance to design an elephant for the elephant parade. These included Rylan Clark, who appeared on X-Factor, the band Union J, who also appeared on X-Factor, and model Claudia Schiffer. Rylan's is the sparkly grey elephant above. Union J's is the larger image. Schiffer's is the dark green elephant with shadows of trees on it.
'Happiness is for Everyone' by Elaine Maher
This elephant parade was not restricted to one area of the UK, so many other cities could see the sculptures and learn about the charity, but this was heavily-focused to northern England, southern Scotland and the 'suburbs' of London area.
'Red Arrow' by Richard Powell
'Stone Rosie' by Angie Rogers; 'Mega Nova' by Pete Fowler
Unlike other animal charity sculpture events, I did not see many people and families looking for the elephant sculptures, and my visit was on a sunny weekend when families would have been out. Although the sculptures were in one place, they were easy to see, but some of the fun and excitement was also taken out of this exploration as they are all located in a couple areas throughout a shopping mall. However, it was still nice to see them but I prefer the actual sculpture trails that often lead one to explore or walk other areas in town centres.
'An Elephant's Tale' by Katie Sollohub
'Razzle Dazzle" by Sheara Abrahams
'Sunday Best' by Anna Masters
The elephants will be in Uxbridge until this weekend. Afterwards, they will be in Bromley for a month before the tour comes to an end.
Have you managed to see the elephants on their UK national tour (well, excluding a large area of it)? What did you think, and which elephant is your favourite?
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