• • • / Brief    / taronga zoo    / Taronga Wild! Rhinos National Design Competition
    / Three out of five rhino species are now critically endangered due to habitat loss and illegal poaching.

In an attempt to help save rhinoceroses from an epidemic of poaching, Sydney’s Taronga Zoo teamed up with Wild In Art to co-ordinate a unique conservation project, taking conservation beyond the zoos and into the community to inspire conservation awareness through art. “If we don’t act, the number of rhinos poached will exceed the birth rate by 2016 tipping them towards extinction.” – Environment Minister Robyn Parker.

 

Businesses, community groups, and education establishments were invited to sponsor a blank rhino sculpture –the canvas. Artists, well-known and undiscovered, were invited to submit their designs. The best designs would then be selected by sponsors to feature on the Taronga Wild! Rhinos sculpture trail.

 

I was fortunate enough to have my design reach the finals and I was invited to travel to Sydney to decorate my canvas. Flying just under 1000kms, I joined the other 55 finalists in brightening a heard of life-sized fiberglass rhinos. Over a three-day period, my rhino gradually came to life with his monotone, tribal pattern. After 8 cans of spray paint, 4 rolls of masking tape, and the death of 1 very over-used stencil, my rhino was born.

 

He was on display at The Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens
as part of the Taronga Wild! Rhinos sculpture trail in New South Wales in the lead up to the auction. All net proceeds went to support Taronga’s Black Rhino breeding and conservation programs. The trail was made up of 125 life-sized, adult and calf rhino sculptures, painted by an array of Australian artists and designers including internationally recognized Ken Done and Camilla Frank.

 

Taronga Zoo raised $400,000 at an auction of the sculptures in May 2014 to support their breeding and field conservation programs for rhinoceros.