Ayşe Erkmen
For fourteen years, Lonely George, the loneliest snail in the world, lived in a laboratory on Hawaii. For this entire period, scientists tried unsuccessfully to find it a mate. When he died in 2019, the species he belonged to, Achatinella apexfulva, died out with him. Erkmen’s Lonesome George is the smallest sculpture ever to be shown at the Skulpturenpark Köln. Her work makes reference to species extinction and also acts as a memorial to the mollusk, which attracted a great deal of attention, albeit futile, once he became the sole representative of his kind.
Chronological presentation of Lonesome George
from July 2020 until July 2022