Ambassadors — Maximilian Zschiesche

12 stories of artificial survival

Ambassadors is an installation consisting of 120 stuffed animals that explores the relation between the natural and the artificial through the lens of the polar bear in human captivity.
In the fight against the climate crisis, polar bears haves become a symbolic image of nature in need of protection—an image that has etched itself into the collective memory. This symbolic framework is employed by zoological institutions to justify the incarceration of these animals—serving as ambassadors of species conservation, making the zoos supposedly act on behalf of nature.
The installation visually traces the twelve most widely circulated media narratives of polar bears in captivity to reveal the emergence of one population that, over time, has entirely been subjected to human control—and thus to artificial conditions.
Through a research process involving various media reports that contributed to the prominence of individual animals or groups of animals, a total of 120 images were collected. In a further step of artificial transformation, these images served as the basis for AI-generated visuals, closely resembling the original photos.
Each set of ten AI-generated images represents one of the twelve stories depicted in the installation. These images were transferred individually onto the backs of the 120 stuffed animals and collectively woven into an immersive Wimmelbild. The images are also reproduced in this accompanying publication and point directly to the stories they represent.
The decision to use the same stuffed animal as the images underscores another layer of artificiality: the commercialization and commodification of the polar bear as a profitable piece of nature.
The entire work is framed by the titles of the twelve stories, arranged in chronological order according to their respective media peaks, and circling the center of the installation. Lines stretch across the floor connecting them, forming a grid that maps intersections, connections, and parallels between the narratives, and guides the spatial arrangement of the stuffed animals.
The installation does not claim to reveal the full complexity of this artificial, human-controlled polar bear population. Rather, it gestures toward it—reflected also in the choice of materials: crepe paper and unbleached cotton (muslin), typically used in the textile industry for prototypes.
In this way, the stuffed animals once again become ambassadors of an artificial population—extending the chain of representations of representations of something that once was natural, without causing harm to living beings.