Hanson Hairihan // WHALETALK – IN MEMORY OF LIFE ON EARTH

My project for In Memory of Life on Earth is entitled Whaletalk. This project is inspired by historian Bathsheba Demuth’s book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. Demuth points out that in traditional Beringian cosmology, whales are perceived as other-than-human persons capable of deciding whether to favor humans by giving themselves to human communities. One of the ways whales communicate their needs and wishes to humans is through dreams, traveling between human’s sphere of activities on the surface of the Earth and the deep sea where the whale’s country resides, as well as the unknown, and the future.

However, in our imagined scenario, many years from now, whales do not survive the deteriorating environmental crisis. Erased from the surface of the Earth, whales are believed to have migrated to a mythological realm. After the departure of the whales, Earth is no longer able to sustain the growing population and a group of humans has to move to Planet X to rebuild civilization. All means of transplanetary communication have been lost due to years of chaos. Subsequently, the ritual of Whaletalk is established on Planet X for the residents to communicate with their loved ones on Earth.

However, in our imagined scenario, many years from now, whales do not survive the deteriorating environmental crisis. Erased from the surface of the Earth, whales are believed to have migrated to a mythological realm. After the departure of the whales, Earth is no longer able to sustain the growing population and a group of humans has to move to Planet X to rebuild civilization. All means of transplanetary communication have been lost due to years of chaos. Subsequently, the ritual of Whaletalk is established on Planet X for the residents to communicate with their loved ones on Earth.

Nothing in the records indicates how these bones end up on Planet X. Erected on the barren land, two paired whale ribs are positioned to frame the daily passing of the Earth. Each day, when the Earth appears inside the frame of the ribs, the bones become a portal through which one can communicate with loved ones on Earth. Whales, people believe, would carry their messages to family and friends on Earth in their dreams. Only one individual or a family unit can access this space per day and has the whole space to themselves while talking to their loved ones through the portal. The ritual ends as the Earth sinks into the horizon. They need to wait for their turn to practice the ritual again after everyone who signs up has done it. Any forms of alteration to the bones or disrespect to the ritual would offend the whales and endanger the only existing means of transplanetary communication between Planet X and Earth.

Whaletalk serves both as a threshold of perception and feeling and a portal to communicate. People can touch the bones, sit on them, or view the Earth passing from afar. Whatever memories or emotions this view of and bodily interaction with the Earth evoke in participants, they have the option to speak to their loved ones through the portal of whale bones, or keep it to themselves and just enjoy a moment of silence and solitude. Whaletalk is a ritual defined by loss and solitude, preserving the connection to a past that defined the human. Through this line of communication, residents of Planet X can recreate memories and engage in a shared experience with their loved ones on Earth. This is also a story of rebirth, evoking the biblical reference of rib’s reproductive power. As the whale ribs cradle the Earth, the residents of Planet X on the other side of the bones participate in the creation of a future from the ruins of the past.

This tradition is inevitably time-bound. After the last person who comes from Earth passes, the practice will lose its primary function to communicate with people on Earth. As the new generation on Planet X marches into an era of reason and progress, the view of the earth passing through whale bones is eventually blocked by buildings and construction. The memory of life on earth becomes a distant past and the site of Whale Talk is perceived as an historic artifact instead of an active portal of communication. However, as myth becomes history, the metaphorical and symbolic significance of the lost tradition continues to fulfill the residents’ existential needs and empowers them to find their own place in the arc of human history.