#OctopusStory celebrates World Ocean Day at St Mary’s Church

#OctopusStory celebrated World Ocean Day with an exhibition, workshops and an evening of performances at St Mary’s Fratton on Wednesday 8^th June as part of the Octopus Story project. 

The work started at the beginning of May when post-graduate marine biology students and STEM specialists worked with artists and school children from Meon, Solent, Westover, Flying Bull and Harbour schools to create work on marine pollution.

Splodge Designs worked with children from Westover to produce an animation on the theme of noise pollution. Tina Sanchez and the pupils at Meon produced giant fish to highlight microplastics,  Seekers Create created murals with classes from Flying Bull and Solent. And STEM Academy ran fun workshops at Harbour school.  The art was displayed to set the scene for an informative and inspiring programme of events to enlighten visitors and get them to become champions for the ocean.

Two of the schools who participated had planned to walk down to the church to see their work on display but the weather had other plans.  Torrential rain meant they cancelled at short notice.  However, some of the children came later in the day with their families with one parent commenting “my daughter had been really excited about seeing the exhibition and when the school trip was cancelled she asked if we could come after school.  Lockdown had affected her motivation but she has been really inspired by this project so I wanted to bring her along and she and her brother have enjoyed the workshops”.

The workshops were run by three PhD students and a STEM specialist.  The activities included making sound waves using sweets on skewers to show how sound travels and how bigger noises have a bigger impact.  Another workshop gave people the opportunity to look at water and sand up close to see how microplastics are already everywhere.

There was a steady stream of visitors to the workshops who also visited a display by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and viewed a range of artworks on the subject of marine pollution.  Angel McMahon’s artworks produced from reused plastics to create sea creatures showing that marine life is now forced to exist alongside plastics because of human behaviour created a thought-provoking display.  At the end of their visit, people could make a public commitment to change a behaviour to support cleaner oceans by writing a statement on a large paper fish.

The evening of entertainment kicked off with a welcome from Project Director Roy Hanney who welcomed people and introduced the crowdfunder which is needed to raise money for the remainder of the project.  He described what the project is doing and how people from across the city are being given a wide range of opportunities to bring the octopus story to life.

Kings Youth Theatre started the performances with two excellent presentations from their show SOS: Save Our Seas.  Three dancers interpreted the marine environment and then three younger members of the theatre group delivered a poetry reading with props to tell us the importance of caring for our planet. Local activist Paula Savage performed a new poem she had written especially for the event telling us why we need to change the way we treat the sea and Becci Louise read extracts from her verse-poem book Octopus Medicine which is the heart of the Octopus Story project. The Octopus Story writers group shared amazing short stories they had written about marine pollution and a therapist octopus!

The entertainment informed the audience on a range of environmental issues.  The short film RUSH showed how widespread rubbish is around the shores of Britain and the work of Oly Rush to both highlight this and to start the huge job of tackling it.  For many at the event, one of the highlights was the talk by Stacey Tonkin, aquarist and octopus keeper at Bristol aquarium, who shared stories of caring for octopuses and their different personalities.

The Powder Monkeys performed two sets of sea shanties and as the last act to perform they ended the evening on a high note.

The audience feedback was universally positive about the exhibition, workshops and performances.  Young and old alike commented on elements that had opened their eyes or shown them a new way of doing things to help protect the oceans.

The exhibition was open the following morning to allow more schools to visit and fortunately the weather was more favourable.

Thanks to everyone involved for creating a thought-provoking, informative and engaging event.