Kim KaosPolar Bear Puppetry
Performer • Puppeteer • Nature Rights Advocate
“If we can save the polar bears, we can maybe save ourselves.”
Polar bears are often called a poster child for climate change—but to Kim Kaos, they are so much more: a living paradox, an urgent symbol, and a fierce and fragile mirror for our own species.
“I love the polar bear. They are beautiful, highly adaptive, skilled hunters—intelligent on a level with great apes. They live solo in one of the harshest environments on Earth, roaming over 2,000 square kilometres, and yet they can play with huskies. They know when to roar and when to walk away.”
For Kim, the polar bear is not just majestic—it’s a catalyst. “They’re on the edge—starvation, habitat collapse—because of us. And yet somehow, we always imagine them as the precarious ones. Let’s look at us.”
He brings that message to life through performance, presence, and awe.
Why I Chose to Stand Beside the Polar Bear
Kim doesn’t simply admire from afar—he embodies. Through puppetry and performance, he brings polar bears into places where they cannot go: into festivals, streets, ceremonies, and children’s imaginations.
“Taking a polar bear into an unfamiliar space can break open the conversation. At my shows, it’s a soft way in—people are drawn to animals, they stop, they look, they feel. Then we talk: about climate, about love, about connection. About how seals can’t breed because sea ice forms too late. How polar bears lose bodyweight in summer because seal blubber is vital. How everything is connected.”
What emerges isn’t despair, but a re‑rooting in wonder.
What Makes the Polar Bear Amazing
Marine mammals that live on ice yet swim for days through frigid sea.
They can smell a seal through miles of snow and darkness—operating like ghosts in the Arctic night.
You can’t even collar them properly—their necks are so thick.
“They’re just… double hard bastards.”
And yet… when you see one up close, “…how fluid. The sheer power. And such beauty.”
Their survival is a delicate dance of evolutionary brilliance—pushed to the brink.
“It’s hard to find food that replaces seal. They fast for months. They’re one of the only species that both frightens and humbles us. That awe is important. It slows people down.”
How Kim Advocates
Kim’s advocacy is felt through presence. Whether performing with giant puppets of polar bears or water goddesses, his goal is the same: to bring people back into right relation with life.
He creates immersive experiences of the wild—silent pauses in public space to remember we are human animals in a web of life.
He links animal empathy with systemic awareness: pollution, overfishing, the collapsing ice seasons, and our collective disconnection from nature.
He invites audiences to admit they love something. That, he says, is where change begins.
“Admitting you love something is powerful. Love leads to protection. Protection to responsibility. That’s stronger than guilt.”
By standing beside the polar bear, Kim asks us to look at our own reflection—fragile, majestic, threatened, and capable of transformation.