Mo Ganji: Vaquita | Kalifornischer Schweinswal | Phocoena sinus | No. 231/250 from work group 8/99

Vaquita | Kalifornischer Schweinswal | Phocoena sinus

Mo Ganji turns toward the vaquita — a small porpoise inhabiting the shallow coastal waters of the northern Gulf of California — by letting the single line move toward essence rather than visibility or scale. The line condenses the being into a reduced coherence, setting aside rarity, fragility and familiarity so that presence can surface without narrative. In Ganji’s understanding, the line does not belong to the porpoise alone; it remains open, reminding us that every form is also a human concept provisionally placed upon a living continuum.

Phocoena sinus is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List and is considered the most endangered marine mammal in the world. Endemic to a very small area in the Gulf of California, the species’ population has collapsed dramatically over the past decades. Current estimates suggest that only a handful of individuals remain.

The principal threat is entanglement in illegal gillnets, primarily set for the totoaba fish, whose swim bladder is trafficked internationally. Despite conservation measures and net bans, enforcement challenges persist. The vaquita’s limited range, low reproductive rate and ongoing bycatch leave almost no margin for recovery.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the porpoise can be encountered beyond urgency or finality. It allows the being to be perceived as a life reduced to the narrowest conditions of survival, suggesting how disappearance can approach quietly — not through ignorance of what is happening, but through the inability to halt it in time.