Mo Ganji: North Atlantic Right Whale | Nördlicher Glattwal | Eubaleana glacialis | No. 141/250 from work group 8/99

Mo Ganji’s single line engages the North Atlantic right whale — a massive baleen whale inhabiting temperate and subpolar waters of the North Atlantic — by letting the being’s inner gravity come forward rather than its monumental scale. The continuous line gathers a concentrated core of presence, enough to suggest life while remaining open to meanings beyond the category of “whale.” In this distillation of the essential, form appears before size, history or symbolism asserts itself.

Eubalaena glacialis is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. Once abundant across the North Atlantic, the species was driven to the brink of extinction by centuries of commercial whaling. Today, fewer than 350 individuals are believed to survive, with a slow or negative population growth rate despite long-standing protection.

The principal threats include collisions with large vessels, entanglement in fishing gear, chronic noise pollution, and changing ocean conditions linked to climate change that affect prey availability. Because right whales mature slowly and reproduce infrequently, the loss of even a few individuals each year has severe consequences for population recovery.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the whale can be encountered beyond magnitude or historical tragedy. It invites attention to a presence shaped by depth, movement and time, quietly reminding us that oceans imagined as vast and resilient are, in fact, finely strained, and that recognizing ourselves as part of these shared waters is inseparable from allowing such ancient lives to continue.