All Creatures Great by Paul Dibble, 1996

The concept of All Creatures Great was drawn from a children’s book which demonstrated the size of a whale as equal to the height of 10 elephants.

On one side, the whale rises on its tail from an atrium pond, while on the other side the elephants are stacked on top of each other. These two endangered species together support a lintel, on which rests an oversized arm holding a plumb-bob.

The work is a comment by Dibble on the power mankind has over nature; the future of the world’s largest land and sea mammals lies in our hands. In this way, the work combines notions of protection, preciousness and the precarious balance of nature.