Deep in the pacific ocean there is wandering the world´s most lonely whale. It has a name ’52’ because of the frequency of it´s sound. The other species can´t hear its´ endless singing which tone is at a different frequency than the other whales tones. No one is answering for it nor has ever seen it. Still, the whale exists because the researchers have heard it already in the mid 80’s. It was found when US Navy build a device to detect underwater listening devices and heard odd signals. Whale 52´s sound is calling at 52 Hz and it doesn’t fit to blue whale´s sound which is 10-39 Hz or fin whale´s tone 20 Hz. Researchers think that the whale is a mixture of more than one species and that makes it one of a kind.
The loneliness of a whale is comparable to people. One of our greatest fears as human beings are loneliness or never being heard by anyone. Like humans, whales are also social creatures. Like humans, whales can also biologically feel love and anger and are able to be part of a social community. Scientists are now trying to find Whale 52 – maybe in the near future it will become friends with people.
Whale 52 was seen at Provinssi 2018. Its´ material is fabric waste and fishing line. Size of the installation 8m x 6m x 4m
Special thanks: Sara Urbanski, Niina Autio, Marika Pekkala, Sampsa Räsänen, Nelli Nurmi and Ankkis Tapio
