Mo Ganji: Dama Gazelle | Dama-Gazelle | Nanger dama | No. 068/250 from work group 8/99

Dama Gazelle | Dama-Gazelle | Nanger dama

Mo Ganji’s single line encounters the Dama gazelle — a tall, long-legged antelope of the Sahel with a light coat and contrasting markings — as a reduced gesture that brings presence into focus without insisting on detail. The continuous line offers a quiet contour, sufficient for recognition yet open enough to resist being fixed to a single meaning. In this economy of form, essence emerges where excess is removed.

Nanger dama is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. Once widespread across North Africa, the species now survives only in a few fragmented populations in Chad, Niger and Mali. Its remaining habitat consists of semi-arid grasslands and desert margins, landscapes that have shrunk dramatically under human pressure.

The main threats include overhunting, habitat degradation from livestock grazing, expansion of agriculture, and political instability that limits effective conservation. Small, isolated groups face additional risks from reduced genetic diversity and the increasing unpredictability of climate conditions in the Sahel region.

Ganji’s single line allows the gazelle’s presence to stand on its own terms. The pared-down form encourages a way of seeing that precedes categorisation — and quietly recalls that the habit of placing humans outside or above nature obscures the reality that our own survival unfolds within the same fragile systems we continue to reshape.