Mo Ganji: Pygmy Hog | Zwergschwein | Porcula salvania | No. 167/250 from work group 8/99

Pygmy Hog | Zwergschwein | Porcula salvania

Mo Ganji concentrates on the pygmy hog — the smallest wild pig species, adapted to tall grasslands and alluvial plains — by allowing the line to move toward essence rather than depiction. The continuous line pares the being back to a compact core of presence, sufficient to register life while remaining open to meanings beyond the category of “hog.” In this reduction, the line resists specificity, reminding us that what we recognize is always a temporary naming of something more fundamental.

Porcula salvania is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. Endemic to a narrow region of northern India, primarily Assam, the species now survives in a handful of protected grassland reserves. Once more widely distributed along the Himalayan foothills, its population collapsed as grasslands were converted to agriculture and settlement.

The principal threats include habitat loss, fragmentation of tall grass ecosystems, annual burning practices, and the isolation of remaining populations. Because pygmy hogs depend on dense grass cover for nesting and protection, even well-intentioned land management can disrupt their survival. Conservation programs combining captive breeding, reintroduction and habitat management have prevented extinction, but numbers remain extremely low.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the hog can be encountered beyond minuteness or rarity. It allows attention to rest on a life compressed into the margins of a disappearing landscape, revealing how reduction in the world itself — of space, cover and continuity — often precedes the reduction of life to memory alone.