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PangeaSeed Foundation, in partnership with the Napier City Council and Alternative Arts Initiative, presented Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans in Napier, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. This event, in its second year, ran from 19th to 26th March with the creative participation of twenty six internationally renowned muralists, who came to paint large-scale murals addressing pressing ocean environmental issues.
Artists who participated in Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans, Napier 2017 included Alyssa Irizarry, Christie Wright, Cracked Ink ,Cryptik, Ekundayo, Erika Pearce, Flox, White, Georgia Hill, Jack Marsden Mayer, James Bullough, Jason Botkin, Jet Martinez, Kai’ili Kaulukukui, Kelly Spencer, Leanne Culy, Seth Globepainter and Onur.
Seth Globepainter’s mural ‘CetaceCan’ cleverly puts a spotlight on human impact affecting marine life such as megafauna like whales. With the child riding the whale’s snout, the mural portrays how future generations may lose what we have if we continue to destructively impact oceans and marine life that are vital to our survival on land. The mural also pays homage to the New Zealand Māori story of Paikea, a whale rider, the ancestor to Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Porou iwi (tribes).
“Summer and winter are inching closer, the four seasons melting together. Due to climate warming, to which we are undoubtedly contributing, polar icecaps and glaciers are shrinking.The Arctic is bound to set yet another summer melt record this year. An iceberg shouldn’t have to drift past a North Sea beach, for us to realize just how close our relationship to the Arctic and Antarctic is. My mural depicts the postapocalyptic scenario of the last iceberg.” Onur
‘Reweave the Unraveling World’ by Pat Perry is a mural about hope. It depicts a boat sailing in a vast grey sea devastated by human impact such as pollution and garbage. On board, there is a girl holding a pinwheel and her mother weaving a tapestry of a healthy blue ocean. The result is a clear contrast between a polluted world and a healthy one, based on alternative energies and respect for nature. The mural is critical of the modern world, where the artist is spotlighting pressing environmental issues the oceans and humanity are facing.
‘Pania of the Reef‘ by James Bullough is the legendary protector of the reef in local Maori folklore and is believed to live in the waters off the coast of Napier, the city where her portrait is painted. Due to man made climate concerns, specifically the raising CO2 levels in our atmosphere, the acidity levels of our oceans have risen and continue to rise as alarming rates killing our reefs and the delicate ecosystems around them worldwide. Pania is depicted floating defiant and hopeful over her baron reef despite the face that she herself is also dissolving from the acidification of the ocean.
Check out more of the finished murals below …
“Public art and activism can educate and inspire the global community to help save our seas. Regardless of your location -large metropolitan city or small seaside village-the ocean supplies us with the breath we take. Life on planet Earth cannot exist without healthy oceans. Dwindling global fish stocks, rising sea levels, and widespread pollution, are issues that impact everyone, regardless of location. As global citizens, we are responsible for the health of the oceans and the wildlife thatcalls it home,” Tré Packard PangeaSeed Foundation Founder
With the completion of this year’s Sea Walls festival, Napier now boasts fifty three unique ocean environmentally-themed murals. Each design is aimed to inspire and educate the community to become better stewards of our seas. The location of all the murals in Napier can be seen below …
Pangeaseed are already organising future projects, in July 2017 events will take place in Cancun and Isla Mujeres, Mexico, then rounding up 2017 with a festival in October in Cairns, Australia.