A 10-meter mural on the wall of Gardens Commercial High School in the City Bowl spreads a strong message of ocean conservation.
It forms part of the Pangeaseed Foundation’s mural art project, Sea Walls.
Sea Walls is a global programme that offers artists a platform to create large-scale murals around the world with an ocean conservation message and call to action.
Sea Walls: South Africa, presented by the Save Our Seas Foundation to celebrate its 20th anniversary, is the first large-scale Pangeaseed project on the African continent.
Artist Marti Lund’s mural of a toddler digging up the beach with a toy truck and digger is the first of 13 murals that will be painted around Cape Town in the coming weeks.
The project officially starts in Cape Town on Monday 6 November.
It will feature week-long, free-to-the-public programming, youth outreach at schools, a coastal clean-up, and mural walking tours to ignite conversation on the different topics expressed in the artwork on buildings all around Cape Town.
Shani Jude, South African Director of Sea Walls SA, said artists will be creating murals across the city.
From Sea Point, Gardens, Foreshore, Salt River, Newlands, Muizenberg, to Kalk Bay.
“We have selected locations and selected artists. So, we matched the locations with the artists. All the artists got to pick one of six topics and they are all ocean conservation focussed.”
Jude said the topics are:
- Environmental justice and racial injustices
- Overfishing and mining
- The Great African Sea Forest
- South African sharks and reefs
- Endangered species
- Plastic pollution and illegal dumping
She said the aim is to emphasize that art can be used to spread a message of ocean conservation. “For the mural in Newlands, one of the buildings is owned by the Deaf Society, so we have been working with the society to include sign language in the mural design for that specific building.”
Lund, a surfer and artist passionate about protecting the Cape West Coast from mining, said he is excited to be a part of the project.
“I am thrilled. It is a long-time alignment. I painted the Sea Walls project in Indonesia. I think the organisation is doing incredible work. This is exactly what I would like to be a part of, as a surfer and someone who is passionate about the West Coast.”
Lund said his painting is a mark of solidarity for efforts to prevent unregulated mining up the Cape West Coast.
“I painted a toddler digging up the beach with a toy truck and digger. It’s about mining companies from other countries coming in and mining the West Coast, north of the Olifants River. It is destroying the beaches and the ecosystems and having an impact on the communities.
He explained that it’s a metaphor for the “childishness” of these mining operations and how “short-sighted” they are.
“The short-sightedness of these mining companies coming in and having this degrading effect on the land and then leaving all that repair and all that money going out of our country.”
In the foreground of his painting, Lund has included a “No Access, Mining in Progress” sign, which references the signs used on West Coast mining sites to restrict access to the beach. He added that it took him about eight days to complete.
Jude said they are looking for four volunteers and restaurants to partner with them so that they can feed the artists and the team.
visit www.seawalls.org for more information.
