Why Benjamin Lachapelle's Animals Matter to Ottawa Now

Benjamin Lachapelle holds a tiny vaquita between his thumb and forefinger. The porpoise—rare, endangered, impossibly detailed—fits in a child's palm. It's sleeping, like most of his creatures, rendered in soft air-dry clay and painted with the care of someone who's been studying animals obsessively since childhood.

"I made many species," he says, turning the figurine gently. "For example, I have a vaquita, a type of porpoise. And a rare-looking zonkey, which is half-zebra, half-donkey."

Lachapelle, 23, is the creator behind Ben Animalia, a multimedia practice that exists at the intersection of art, activism, and deep autistic passion. He sculpts. He paints. He draws. He writes books. He thinks in animals the way most people think in language. Last month, an Instagram video of him working on *A Dreaming Place*—a collection of over 200 sleeping animal figurines—reached three million views in days. The internet noticed. More importantly, Ottawa noticed.

The city recently named him a recipient of the Ottawa 200 Artist/Creator Grant for an ambitious new project: the *Ottawa 200th Celebration Biodiversity Tree*, an installation of 200 clay animals representing different species living in and around the capital. Muskrats, chipmunks, birds, turtles. Creatures that belong here.

"When I won it, I was so happy," Lachapelle said.

## The Superpower

Lachapelle was diagnosed with classical autism at age three. His mother, Julie Chou, has spent two decades watching her son transform what could be a limiting condition into creative fuel.

"A lot of people who are autistic are very passionate about a certain topic or certain topics," she explained, sitting near her son in their Sandy Hill home. "Animals have been Ben's love since he was a very young boy."

The family moved to Ottawa from Quebec's Laurentian region about 18 months ago—Chou's hometown, a homecoming that's already begun to reshape the city's cultural landscape in small, significant ways.

Lachapelle's introduction to clay came through occupational therapy. As a child struggling with fine motor control, he worked with Play-Doh and magic sand. He loved it. On rainy days, he still reaches for clay the way other people reach for their phones. The texture, the form, the possibility of transformation—it all clicks.

"When I was a little baby, I would always learn about animals," he recalled. "When I got more into Baby Einstein and other animal movies, I would draw the animals and make my own stories. I knew how to craft with clay too."

By adolescence, animals had become his lens on the world. Ben Animalia—the social enterprise he and Chou launched five years ago—began as a way to sell calendars and run community initiatives. It's evolved into something more profound: a vehicle for showing what's possible when you center the gifts of autistic and disabled creators.

## The Protest

Beyond the sculptures and the Instagram fame, Lachapelle has built a parallel artistic practice around environmental urgency. His *Extinction Protest Series*—vibrant paintings grouping endangered and extinct animals by theme, their mouths open in silent screaming—emerged from his own frustration with accelerating species loss.

"I do this to keep animals safe," he said simply.

Each painting is an act of witness. The species are documented, celebrated, mourned. One recent piece, *Protest of the Bees*, was featured at a community pop-up at Ottawa Bike Cafe. There's also *Blue Animals Protest*, a calendar of creatures standing together against climate change and habitat loss. The work is straightforward in its anger and its intention: pay attention to what we're losing.

For Chou, watching her son translate despair into art has been revelatory. "The overwhelming support is so touching as a mother," she said. "That's awareness, acceptance, and inclusion."

## Building the Tree

The Ottawa 200 grant represents a significant shift. Lachapelle and Chou aren't just creating art for exhibition—they're creating civic infrastructure. The biodiversity tree will feature 200 animals, each one representing a species in the city's ecosystem. It's simultaneously an artwork, an environmental statement, and a public education project.

Crucially, they're not doing it in isolation.

"We want to find a place that's inclusive and easy to get to for anyone who wants to see them," Chou said of the original sleeping animals. "There's a lot of people that find them really emotional. They resonate with them."

For the biodiversity project, they're collaborating with local environmental groups and Indigenous knowledge keepers. The goal is to weave Indigenous understanding of the land and its creatures into the installation alongside scientific species data.

"We're trying to collaborate with different environmental groups in our neighbourhood and also connect with local Indigenous knowledge keepers because we really want to incorporate their insight into the project," Chou explained. "We're so happy, Ottawa is such a great town. We've felt very welcomed."

It's a model of inclusion that extends beyond the art itself. The process of making the tree is itself an act of bridge-building—connecting autistic creativity, environmental science, Indigenous knowledge, and civic celebration.

## What It Means

There's something happening here that matters beyond the art world. In choosing to invest in Lachapelle's vision, Ottawa is making a statement about what kinds of voices get amplified, what kinds of knowledge are valued, and who gets to help shape how the city understands itself.

An autistic artist whose passion is animals is now responsible for helping 200-year-old Ottawa think about the creatures that share this landscape. His disability, his hyperfocus, his relentless attention to the specific and the beautiful—these are now civic assets.

"That inclusive feeling," Chou said when asked what Ben Animalia is really about. "Showing Ben's contribution as an autistic and disabled artist, and that there is so much to people with disabilities. That is our mission. To really build the idea of showing all types of autism and welcoming everyone."

Lachapelle's animals sleep. They protest. They wait to be seen. And in a year when Ottawa turns 200, they'll be there— 200 species standing witness to the city and the creatures we've inherited.