Painting the Town Blue: Artivism and Bringing the Ocean to the Streets
SHOW NOTES
In this episode of World of Sharks, we chat with Akira Biondo and Tré Packard, co-founders of PangeaSeed, an organisation that aims to leverage the influence of contemporary art to raise awareness about urgent threats to our oceans. But long before the establishment of the organisation in 2010 came a love for the ocean, which significantly shaped both Tré and Akira’s lives – albeit in different ways [05.47]. Growing up in Southern California, Tré was immersed in the ocean from an early age. “It’s always been a source of inspiration, rejuvenation… peace during really stressful personal times,” he says. Akira, meanwhile, grew up far from the sea in Switzerland. Her connection to the sea was fostered through travel; a collection of “special moments” from locations across the world: “…like the first time I saw like the gills of a whale shark like undulate or the first time I got to just kind of get lost in the sort of the technicolor-scape of a coral reef. I think there’s all of those types of like firsts that stick with you.”
Not all of those memories were joyful. One dive in Borneo left a lasting impact after a blast from illegal dynamite fishing exploded nearby underwater. “I surfaced and all of these stunned fish were floating around me,” Akira recalls, “so that was extremely impactful and something I’ll never forget.”
Experiencing not just the magic of underwater ecosystems, but also the dark realities facing them, is something both Tré and Akira share. Before founding PangeaSeed, Tré worked as a photographer, documenting the illegal wildlife trade in Asia [15.49]. Over time, witnessing the impact of the trade began to take an emotional toll: “Documenting death and destruction on a daily basis was just becoming too heavy,” he says. While he recognised the power of shocking imagery to raise public awareness, Tré felt he wanted to do more. Contemporary art offered a slightly different route -one rooted in connection and empathy. “It’s really hard to encourage people to change cultural practices and consumption habits and things like that. But art seemed to be like a cool gateway drug to get people interested in what’s below the surface, you know, and, start having those discussions in a way that might help people kind of reframe and have a connection to our oceans,” he says.
That idea eventually became PangeaSeed, founded in 2010 to harness creativity for ocean conservation [19.31]. Their mission is to bridge art and science, facilitating collaborations between researchers and artists to broaden the impact of their work, raising awareness of threats to the marine environment and promote ocean literacy within communities. The organisation’s name reflects its core values; “seed” stands for Sustainability, Education, Ecology and Design. And collaboration and community are at its heart.
“We very much rely on the broad network of artists that we’ve been able to foster over the many years, as well as community,” Akira explains, “you know, having built a community of artists, but also always finding community wherever we go and host our projects. And then… thinking about these issues in an intersectional way where we’re really trying to kind of take a bit of a broader understanding of what the problem is that we’re addressing and the people we’re getting to collaborate and partner with. So, you know, looking at also social injustices that may be involved and the broader sort of cultural context and not looking at just, you know, a problem in a vacuum.”
This intersection of creative expression and activism has been coined in recent years as ‘artivism’. For Akira and Tré, art and marine science greatly complement each other. On the one hand, science is crucial to understanding the health and function of our oceans, offering evidence-based insights that can inform policy-making and solutions towards the more sustainable and equitable use of the seas. But, science can also be inaccessible for the vast majority of people. It is complex, difficult to understand and translate across languages, cultures and contexts. This is where art comes in. “We need to connect with people emotionally. And art has a very unique power to do that,” says Tré. “There’s a bit of an ivory tower around science and the jargon and it can feel very exclusive,” adds Akira, “But an artist will then take that information and visualise it. And I think that is really where the beauty lies, seeing how an artist will take this very hard to understand information and make it something that is just a compelling image.” Art can pique people’s curiosity and encourage them to learn more, even encouraging their involvement in conservation, in a way that scientific data alone cannot. “And I think that’s really the core power of it,” says Akira.
One of PangeaSeed’s best-known initiatives became Sea Walls, a global public art programme focused on large-scale ocean murals [30.32]. The idea emerged unexpectedly during a project in Sri Lanka, centred around the overfishing of manta rays. At first, the language barrier made communicating the reality of the issue challenging. “An artist that we worked with…had the idea to paint a mural in the community to kind of illustrate what was happening,” recalls Tré, “and so we put all the pieces together, made that happen. And again, another light bulb moment.” The mural didn’t solve the problem overnight, but it started conversations — and revealed the power of public art as a communication tool. “It was just like, wow, we can really bypass bureaucracy… and bring the oceans into the streets in a democratic and free source kind of way.” Over the next decade, what began as a single mural grew into 550 in over 20 countries. And, the programme became more than show-stopping, large scale art pieces. “The murals are kind of like…the focal point, and we built this out. [It’s] kind of like a festival format. Throughout the week, we’re gonna have public outreach opportunities, youth workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, different things like that to get people engaged,” Tré adds.
Art has the ability to transcend cultural and social differences, sparking dialogue and shifting perspectives beyond our typical silos. For Akira, this was evident from that first mural in Sri Lanka. “The mantas were being heavily overfished,” she explains, “…it’s very hard to speak with someone or compel someone to not do that when they’re concerned about how to feed their family, not like the next year, but tomorrow. But people innately understand that what they take from the ocean impacts it, right? Especially fishermen.” In gathering the community around the mural of a manta, it started a conversation about how different people see the species. “I think painting a mural that portrayed manta rays in a very different way from the way they were relating to them as a source of their livelihood and their catch, but thinking of them as more of an animal with some intrinsic value was really…is something that just is quite profound.”
For Akira and Tré, the ‘seed’ in PangeaSeed is more than just an acronym [45.32]. It symbolises a seed being planted within communities, that hopefully will blossom into a living, growing thing. Every project begins with collaboration. Sometimes communities reach out directly, hoping to bring artivism to their own coastline. From there, the process involves years of planning, fundraising, logistics and relationship-building. But the murals themselves are only part of the story. The projects also include workshops, discussions and community engagement — helping locals to “see themselves in the artworks that we leave behind.” Artists are encouraged to immerse themselves in the places they work, often experiencing the ocean firsthand before beginning their murals.
One unforgettable moment came during an early project involving whale sharks in Mexico [50.47]: “We had artists there that couldn’t swim… and their first experience was being surrounded by whale sharks,” Akira smiles. Those experiences often transform not just the artwork — but the artists themselves.
At its core, PangeaSeed’s work is about helping people realise that conservation is not reserved for scientists or policymakers alone. Instead, people can use whatever skills they already have — whether that’s art, poetry, storytelling or even culinary skills — to contribute meaningfully.
“I think that is really what our work has shown is that you don’t have to be marine biologist. You don’t have to be a policymaker to make a difference for the ocean,” Akira says. “You don’t even have to be able to swim…But whatever you’re passionate about, take that and see how you can put that to good use.
Utilise your creativity to give what you care about a voice.”
ABOUT OUR GUESTS
TRÉ PACKARD
Executive Director, PangeaSeed
Tré Packard is an internationally renowned public art curator and award-winning environmental photographer marrying both art and activism to cultivate a new era in marine conservation. As a passionate conservationist, Tre’ has traveled throughout Asia documenting some of the most remote locations bringing to light never before documented fisheries contributing to the destruction of ocean ecosystems and the often illegal trade of threatened marine life.
He is the creator of the Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans public art program which has curated over 500 environmental ocean-themed public artworks in 20 countries since 2014. In addition, Tré is a lifelong scuba diver and PADI Dive Ambassador.
AKIRA BIONDO
Director of Operations, PangeaSeed
Akira, originally from Switzerland, is the Director of Operations at PangeaSeed and a co-founder of the Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans program (2014-2024). Her passion for the environment stems from her extensive travels across the globe and experiencing first-hand humanity’s impact on the planet. With a background in Sustainability Studies and Cultural Anthropology, she believes that protecting our home planet for future generations requires an interdisciplinary approach that includes the arts, creative problem-thinking, and the voices of all people.
You can find out more about PangeaSeed here https://pangeaseed.org/ or find them on social media (@pangeaseed).
You can also read about their latest project in Seychelles, Mahé Ocean Murals: https://saveourseas.com/public-art-will-celebrate-seychelles-oceans-across-mahes-cityscape/
