About Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks (2024)

How did peacocks, native to India, find themselves on a Berlin island in the 19th century, and hippopotamuses, a hundred years later, along a Colombian riverbank? Their existence seems “happy and free.” Through stunning visuals, Elkin Calderòn Guevara and Johannes Förster create a decolonial fable that transforms these creatures into symbols of wildness, reflecting the caprices of those in power.