Throughout the spring a herd of beautiful animals paraded across Kinshasa, Lagos, and Dakar, then Marrakesh, Casablanca, Cadiz, and Madrid. As big as life, these gorillas, giraffes, elephants, and lions, crafted by the South African art collective Ukwanda, are made of recycled cardboard, a material as dull and ubiquitous as the massive puppets are enchanting and rare, not to mention endangered in their real-world incarnations. In June to late–July, The Herds, as this public art project is called, appears in Marseille and Arles, Venice, Paris, London, and Manchester, then Aarhus, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Trondheim, and finally the Arctic Circle. In each city, local artists join in. On the beach in Dakar, the Senegalese choreographer Jean Tamba staged a confrontation between the animals and spirit-sandstorms made of huge mops of reeds. In London’s West End, Royal Shakespeare troupers will try to distract the wolves and wildebeasts from devouring them. The artful mayhem is meant to remind the world what majesty and alien power there is to lose if we do not halt climate change. —Apollinaire Scherr

THE HERDS will make stops in Marseilles, Arles, Venice, Paris, London, Manchester, Aarhus, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Trondheim, and finally the Arctic Circle in late July.