A campaign I've been working on for a while launched yesterday. It's for
Save Our Seas - a non profit organisation who work to preserve our marine creatures and their environment.
To educate the public about the fast decline of oceanic life, we came up with the idea of giving the ocean and its inhabitants a voice.
If walking along Muizenberg beach in Cape Town yesterday you would have come across a sea shell that actually spoke. Fitted with a mini speaker device the shell holds a recording that speaks of the ocean's plight from the point of view of the sea.
This morning, beach goers discovered messages in bottles that had appeared to have washed ashore. Inside the weathered bottles were handwritten letters - personal calls for help from different sea creatures like Shawn the Prawn or Greg the Great White Shark.
In this way we communicate the threats that the ocean faces in a very personal tone of voice. It's a personal SOS from the sea.
Bottles on the beach this morning before they were discovered.
I was fortunate to have involvement from some fantastic, internationally-renowned illustrators in crafting the letters for this campaign. With their skills they added life and personality to our messages, allowing them to take on the character of the various sea creatures who penned the letters.
The final stage of this ambient campaign will play out tomorrow morning. I'll post a follow up about that. Also on Muizenberg beach this final statement is a sobering reminder that speaks to the fact that if we as humans don't drastically change our behaviour towards the ocean, there will simply be no life left in it. No more fish and chips. No more Nemo.
