You are about to listen to an imagined conversation between the taxidermied Silverback gorilla who is banging his chest and a living gorilla living in the Albert National Park in Belgian Congo. 

Taxidermied Silverback: I stand here, beating my chest in power. I was chosen—shot by Herbert Bradley, posed by Carl Akeley. They called me the Giant of Karisimbi. Not for who I was, but for what I could represent: power made orderly. Before they posed me here, they knew little of our kind. People feared us. They called us dangerous—so close to themselves, they did not know what to make of us.

Living Gorilla: I live now in a park in the Congo. They say it was created because of Carl Akeley—
the man who once carried your body away.

Taxidermied Silverback: That name—Akeley—it’s everywhere around us now.
Sometimes I wonder if I am more his legacy than my own. I am just skin, clay wire and wood, but through Akeley, I stand here in power. They say this diorama made people less afraid of us— but when they stand in front of me, I hear the whispers: "Watch out for King Kong," they say. They project their fears onto me, all the things they don't want to see in themselves.

Living Gorilla: You are right to think Akeley shaped our memory. The trees here still whisper stories of the time when men came—with guns, with cameras, with easels and paint - an odd combination. 

When you were shot, they say Akeley suffered a crisis of conscience.It took all his belief in scientific purpose to quiet the feeling he had murdered something magnificent. They say he envied you in death.

Taxidermied Silverback: And where is this Akeley now?

Living Gorilla: He lies buried on the same mountain where you once roamed. The land where you lived became his resting place.

Taxidermied Silverback: It was not his land. How strange, that his body remains in the soil of our home— and mine stands frozen here behind glass.Maybe it should have been the other way around.

Living Gorilla: Perhaps you are right. It is hard to know. You became part of the public memory—maybe that's something different from the trophies only hunted for pride. But still, are you not also a trophy?

Taxidermied Silverback: In some ways, I think yes. Yet in others, I am a witness.
I show those who pass by who we are—or at least, who I was ans get to witness their attention to our kind.
 
Living Gorilla: It is complicated. Even if they know us within this building—how can they ever know the struggles I face now?

Taxidermied Silverback: You are right. Looking at me will never be the same as looking at you. Where I am stiff and cold, you are warm and alive.

They want to keep us living—but that takes more than the individuals who pause at my case. It demands collective action.