A dead whale showed up outside COP29 in Azerbaijan. It's just an art installation
A Belgian-based art collective known as Captain Boomer is behind the dead whale art installation outside the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
Bounded by the Caspian Sea, the former Soviet republic known as Azerbaijan may be one of the last places people would expect to see a beached sperm whale.
As the world's largest lake, the inland body of water is not inhabited by the massive marine mammals, which make their homes in the deep oceans. Considering that fact, many residents of the nation's capital of Baku may have been surprised this week to see – and even smell – what looked an awful lot like a dead whale stranded on land.
But the carcass isn't a real one, no matter how lifelike it appears to be. Rather, what many spectators have been crowding to see is a life-size replica of a beached sperm whale on a waterfront promenade of Baku.
The installation is the work of a Belgian-based art collective known as Captain Boomer, organization member Bart Van Peel confirmed to Paste BN. The collective received permission to display the replica as world leaders are gathering for the annual climate summit known as the COP29.
COP29 is also called Conference of the Parties, or the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The conference began Monday in Azerbaijan, which is bordered to the north by Russia and to the south by Iran, and will focus on how much wealthy countries should pay to help developing nations facing the devastating effects of climate change.
Beached whale in Azerbaijan is world-famous art installation
For more than a decade, Captain Boomer's members have been staging beachings across Europe and Australia.
As the collective describes it on its website, the whale model is a "gigantic metaphor for the disruption of our ecological system."
When the whale model is being displayed, members of the collective stage a bit of street theater, taking on the roles of scientists piecing together just what happened to the creature that left it stranded and visibly injured. The group even performs under the guise of a fictitious organization, the North Sea Whale Association, performing mock autopsies and dissections.
To maintain the illusion, the members even hide buckets of rotting fish nearby for a rancid aroma.
What is the COP29 climate change summit?
Van Peel told CNN that the installation will remain up throughout the entirety of COP29, which will run through Nov. 22.
The conference involves representatives and negotiators from 197 nations who have signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
More than 40,000 people are expected to attend the meeting. The 12-day conference brings together diplomats, scientists, activists, lobbyists, environmental groups and businesses from countries who've ratified a treaty aimed at preventing "dangerous" human interference with the climate.
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, Paste BN; Reuters
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for Paste BN. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com