Art of the Ocean Decade

At The Ocean Agency, we believe one of the biggest issues holding back ocean conservation is its image. All too often, the imagery used is negative or — even worse — cliché illustrations of dolphins, turtles, and seahorses. It’s true that portraying the ocean this way helps attract a niche audience of people who are passionate about saving the environment. However, it’s at a huge cost. It alienates the everyday people who arguably have the greater potential to effect change.

Engaging a mainstream audience in ocean conservation has always been challenging, but it’s gotten even more difficult in recent years.  As social media has grown exponentially, so has the amount of content people see each day. It’s hard to get more than a millisecond of someone’s attention if your content isn’t new or trending. Even the best ocean imagery now struggles to attract interest in the way it once did.

So, we knew we had a huge challenge on our hands when we decided to team up with UNESCO to raise awareness about the importance of the ocean as part of the UN Ocean Decade. We needed to think creatively.

Together with our creativity partner, Adobe, we decided to enlist the help of the Adobe GenCreate community. We challenged these young artists to produce digital artworks inspired by the UN Ocean Literacy Principles (the 7 things everyone should know about the ocean). We asked for artworks that were positive and unexpected and provided a few examples of artworks that we liked for added inspiration.

It was clear that the surreal photo-art examples we provided captured the interest of the artists. About 70% of the pieces submitted through the Create Waves campaign were surreal photo-artworks, and the artists took this concept in all sorts of unexpected directions. The images were captivating, highly creative, and stopped you in your tracks. They made you want to question what they were communicating. It was exactly what we were looking for.

We instantly knew we had artwork that could do justice to the UN Ocean Decade by helping to transform the image of the ocean and ocean education.

So, we decided to create an exhibition of the work. The Ocean Decade Exhibition launched outside UNESCO headquarters in Paris with nearly 100 artworks on public display. It was a big success even during the pandemic – a refreshingly positive display of creativity with a deeply important meaning.

Following that success, we took the exhibition to Lisbon to coincide with the UN Ocean Conference. It was exhibited in one the city’s most iconic public spaces, Rossio Square, thanks to the support of the Oceano Azul Foundation. Again, it got a great response, with people taking pictures of their favorite artworks and getting into discussions about the 7 Ocean Principles.

And the Ocean Decade Exhibition is still making an impact. The artworks have since been used to develop free educational resources to improve ocean literacy thanks to the support of the UC Irvine Science Project.

It has also been adapted into a digital exhibition, starting with a semi-permanent exhibit in the Florida Aquarium, which has close to 1 million visitors year. Adobe took the Exhibition to a new level by animating the artworks. We’re now making this digital exhibition available to other aquariums and venues to maximize its reach.  

The Ocean Decade Exhibition is currently on public display in the center of Geneva with views of the iconic water jet. Where it grows from here? You’ll have to wait and see...

Read more about the Ocean Decade Exhibition here.

Thank you to all of the artists who have been involved with the Ocean Decade Exhibition: Aanish Peshave, Abdelrahman Elbadry, Ali Barizi, Angela Compagnone, Avik Paul, César Sousa, Diogo Sampaio, Eqzon Muliiqi, Gryphon Bearden, Hansruedi Ramsauer, Haruki Tominaga, Herri Susanto, Hüseyin Sahin, Huzefa Indorewala, Jordan Singh, Justin Peters, Karanjit Borah (Keronix Raze), Kemi Schneider, Kevin Adams, Martijn Schrijver, Ong Ying Sin, Ramón Laguía, Resul Menteş, Santi Urso, Sean C, Shaylin Wallace, Siddhesh Katkar, Solaja Abigail, Oluwakemi, Ted Chin, Tim El-Helou, and Umut Reçber.