Mo Ganji: Pyrenean Desman | Pyrenäen-Desman | Galemys pyrenaicus | No. 169/250 from work group 8/99

Mo Ganji brings the Pyrenean desman — a small semi-aquatic mammal specialized for fast, cold mountain streams — into focus through the discipline of the single line. The unbroken line reduces the being to its essential coherence, withholding detail and function to let a core presence appear. In Ganji’s thinking, the line does not belong to the desman alone; it could just as well signify something else, reminding us that every depicted being is also a human concept, temporarily fixed by a name.

Galemys pyrenaicus is listed as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List. Endemic to the Pyrenees and parts of northern Spain and Portugal, the species inhabits clean, well-oxygenated rivers and streams. Its distribution is naturally fragmented, and populations have declined in several regions over recent decades.

The principal threats include river modification, hydroelectric development, water pollution, reduced flow from abstraction, and climate change altering hydrological regimes. Because the desman depends on stable stream dynamics and specific prey availability, even subtle changes to river systems can disrupt survival. Fragmentation further limits movement between suitable habitats.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the desman can be encountered beyond obscurity or specialization. It allows attention to rest on a life shaped by flow and continuity, suggesting how beings adapted to precise conditions often vanish not through dramatic rupture, but through incremental shifts that quietly undo the balance they require to exist at all.