Huge art exhibition from city's creators to come to Portsmouth for World Oceans Day

The day-long celebration, Octopus Story, takes place on World Oceans Day, June 8, at St Mary’s Church in Fratton.

The exhibition will include workshops, a sea shanty performance, live poetry and art from creators across the city.

It comes following a £50,000 funding boost from Arts Council England in hopes to create ‘bigger and better’ project platforms for creators to showcase their works across the city including more immersive audience experiences.

World Oceans Day is celebrated to inform people on the impact human actions can have on the ocean.

Organiser, Roy Hanney, said: ‘I'm really excited that we're focusing what we're doing on the environment and in particular our city and our relationship with the sea.

‘The funding will help develop the audience experiences but also to give us the opportunity to do something like this.

‘Over the last five or six years we've been building our collective, building our network and getting more experience. What we want to do as a group of artists and creatives is to put on large scale immersive theatre, immersive experiences in the city, really spectacular, wow-factor events.

‘The funding will help develop the audience experiences but also to give us the opportunity to do something like this.

‘This is our biggest project yet and it's going to be quite spectacular.’

The Octopus Story exhibition goes live at St Mary’s at 1pm and features a giant octopus and fantastical sea creatures hanging above the ground.

‘It’s as if they’re floating in the sea,’ explained Roy. ‘It’s an imagined world of strange and bizarre creatures that might have emerged from a sea polluted by plastic.

‘We need to change our attitudes. We need to be living in harmony with the sea, not destroying it.’

Created by artists and local children, all the works focus on the sea pollution people can’t see – noise, microplastics and chemicals.

The workshops run between 4pm and 6pm and include activities from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and postgraduate marine researchers from University of Portsmouth.

The evening kicks off at 7pm with dance from Kings Youth Theatre.

It also features Becci Louise, the author of Octopus Medicine, the book that inspired Octopus Story.

Stacey Tonkin of Bristol Aquarium will tell ‘incredible’ experiences of caring for a Giant Pacific Octopus, there will be sea shanties from The Powder Monkeys, local writers performing poetry ocean tales, as well as several short films.

Matt Wingett, 54, an author performing at St Mary’s, said: ‘Octopus Story is one of a series of amazing events running until November. The talent in Portsmouth is extraordinary.

‘It’s all about raising awareness for our fragile yet incredibly important natural resources, and promoting protection for at least 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030, due to be discussed at the next COP-15 conference in China this year. As an island Portsmouth will be badly hit by rising sea levels and marine pollution. Octopus Story will be a great event to capture the imaginations of all generations.’

All event from Octopus Story are free to attend on the day.

Register for tickets here.