Sea Walls Boston

At the intersection of Maverick and Border Streets in East Boston, three large sharks—a great white, thresher, and mako—cover an expansive brick wall. In a blue sea, purple, pink, and green flora flutter while the majestic animals, one with teeth bared, appear to hover in place. The mural Fear by accomplished local artist Sophy Tuttle is just one of 15 artistic works painted as part of this summer’s Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans Boston project, a nomadic ocean-centered public art program with films, lectures, youth workshops, beach clean-ups, and more by the PangeaSeed Foundation. The Aquarium hosted two events, a screening of Obey Giant, a documentary about artist Shepard Fairey and a panel discussion Countdown to 2030: Leveraging Art and Creativity for the Ocean Decade.

PangeaSeed Foundation is an ocean conservation nonprofit that aims to “empower individuals and communities to create meaningful environmental change for oceans through science, education, and ARTivism.” The organization has hosted the Sea Walls program—which aspires to take the oceans into the streets—around the world from the “polar bear capital in the subarctic to the coral triangle in Indonesia,” says co-founder Tré Packard. So far, artists have produced roughly 500 works in 18 countries since its inception in 2014, he says.

But this year and last [where a local Sea Walls project produced seven murals], Sea Walls made a point to show up in Boston, where climate change directly affects the city, especially the waterfront.

And, with its home on central wharf and advocacy for an equitable and resilient waterfront, the New England Aquarium and nonprofit HarborArts in East Boston made the perfect partners.

One of the festival’s sprawling anchor murals, A Vital and Vibrant Ocean for All by Fairey, graces the front-facing wall of the Aquarium’s Simons Theatre. The mural features a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale emanating a mandala. The words “protect the blue planet” and “one ocean, one people” appear above and below the mandala looming high above passersby.

The mural is made possible with the generous support of artist and Aquarium Board of Trustees member Linda Cabot. Cabot—a passionate ocean advocate—spearheaded early conversations between the Aquarium, HarborArts, and PangeaSeed Foundation. She also facilitated the Aquarium’s role as an honorary conservation partner.

In an interview, Cabot says, “Helping to bring Sea Walls to Boston and the PangeaSeed Foundation is really a dream come true.”

When choosing a host city for the festival, typically, Packard isn’t interested in larger cities.

“I don’t necessarily like activating in larger cities because it can be really challenging to cut through all the noise that a big city has to offer,” Packard shares. “You’re competing with a massive amount of public events and things like that.”

But once Packard started to dig deeper into the impact that climate change was having on Boston, especially East Boston, he thought it was an important location to bring the project to.

“We believe in the power of public art to bring people together,” says Matthew Pollock, executive director of HarborArts and project director for Sea Walls Boston. “Being a neighborhood of majority-working-class and majority-immigrant residents, East Boston is an environmental and climate justice community that is disproportionately impacted by the consequences of pollution and sea level rise. Together, we harnessed the universal language of public art to inspire positive action for our ocean and our city,” he says.

Each year Packard works to create a balanced line-up and bring together creatives with various skills and backgrounds.

“For SeaWalls Boston, every mural is different from the other in terms of the aesthetic and the messaging. So, when you’re experiencing these, you’re experiencing, a world-class outdoor gallery…bringing all these individuals together to help give the oceans a voice,” Packard explains.

Leading up to the festival, PangeaSeed Foundation comes up with a topic deck that lists issues and solutions relevant to that specific community that gets handed off to artists. In addition to the research and topic decks, Packard says, partnerships are critical.

“Linda Cabot, who’s a long-term supporter and dear friend of ours, bridged that gap and brought us [PangeaSeed Foundation and the Aquarium] together, and we were able to connect with [Dr.] John [Mandelman].”

Packard wanted to make sure that artists could connect with experts in the field to delve deeper into the topic they planned to address.

Tuttle says she Zoomed for an hour with Dr. Mandelman, vice president and chief scientist at the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, who talked to her about the crippling fear that sharks induce in some people.

In reality, though, it’s humans—who hunt and eat sharks—who pose the greater risk.

Using art to further ocean conservation efforts is just part of what the PangeaSeed Foundation does. Tuttle also points out that the organization practices what it preaches by intentionally using recyclable materials throughout the festival whenever possible such as carbon-absorbing paints, bamboo straws, and other paper products.

Pushing ocean conservation issues to the forefront through art is Packard’s life’s work. He hopes that his organization’s efforts spark dialogue. That is where change begins, he says.

“Oceans are out of sight, out of mind. A lot of people don’t take into consideration their daily impact on the environment because there’s such a massive disconnect,” Packard says.

Packard has loved the water for as long as he can remember. His commitment to ensuring a healthy ocean has translated into attending summits and working with governments to shape policies alongside the festival.

He wants these public artworks erected all over the world to disrupt the way the communities see these issues and hopes it “gets people thinking, understanding that their choices are important and that they do have an impact on the environment and what’s at stake for future generations.”

His key takeaway from his body of work is that “the oceans are the life-support system of the planet. Without healthy oceans, life on land is impossible. So, everybody’s got a stake in this, and everybody needs to be involved.”