Lacuna La

This Monument honours Clarabelle, a cow who was rescued from a dairy farm and brought to a sanctuary. As the story goes, soon after arriving at the sanctuary, Clarabelle gave birth in secret. Not knowing that she was now safe, Clarabelle hid her newborn calf among tall grasses and fallen logs, away from any humans who might take him away as they had done with all her other calves. Clarabelle herself had been separated from her own mother hours after her birth, and isolated in a calf "hutch". She was then put on a regimen of manual insemination, pregnancy, birth, calf separation, lactation, machine milking, and insemination again. Before arriving at the sanctuary, Clarabelle had been under physical restraint for much of her life in a tie-stall system, chained by her neck to her milking stall, and restrained during impregnation.

A statue of Clarabelle and her calf, Valentine, in the tall grass, with discarded chains and insemination instruments cast off to the side, brings into view the losses endured by mother cows and calves and reminds us of the inviolate bonds between mother and child. At the base of the statue are images carved in relief that tell the story of Clarabelle’s life.

This Memorial is dedicated to the hundreds of infant and juvenile chimpanzees who were removed from their mothers at birth and held in small sealed isolation boxes called "isolettes" by SEMA Inc., in Rockville, Maryland.¹ The chimpanzees were experimental subjects who underwent a protocol of virus infection, and surgical biopsies of the liver, bone marrow, lymph nodes and intestine. Their confinement in the isolettes caused extreme sensory and psychological isolation, and many of the chimpanzees fell into states of deep depression, became psychotic, catatonic, or died as a result. This Monument depicts stacks of isolettes containing the bodies of the infant chimpanzees. On and around these isolettes, the spirits of the chimpanzees engage in wild and carefree play. The Isolettes Memorial reminds us of the preciousness of childhood, and our shared need for bonds of affection, for joy, and play.