Whalefall

Yukon, Canada | 9 min | 2021

When a whale dies of natural causes, their body slowly decomposes in the ocean, nourishing the environment. This is called “whalefall”. In 2006, off the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, a juvenile humpback whale drowned when her tail was caught in a herring fishing net. Instead of slowing sinking to the sea floor, the whale’s body was washed up on a beach where it was salvaged by a skeleton preservation company. Thirteen years later, using garbage salvaged from the ocean, Yukon artist Joyce Majiski began working on a sculpture of that juvenile whale’s skeleton for her “Song of the Whale” exhibit.

Joyce is a mesmerizing artist. She is a flurry of creativity interrupted by moments of great stillness and contemplation. She’s an environmentalist who often collaborates with others and whose work addresses nature and the human impact on it.

“Whalefall” follows Joyce as she carves an exact replica of the whale—bone by bone—using garbage collected from the ocean. An homage to the whale, Majiski’s sculpture is a stark reminder of how human pollutants affect the nature world.