ADEX 2017: ‘Unbleach the reef with Green Fins’

Reef-World participates at ADEX (Asia Dive Expo), one of Asia’s biggest dive shows with an attendance of over 60,000 participants, to raise awareness on the Green Fins message. These events provide with the possibility to have a direct interaction with the industry and my responsibility was to create and design the concept and layout for the booth.

Each year the event runs under an umbrella concept, for 2017 it was climate change. We created the concept ‘Unbleach the reef’, based on the idea of helping the reef build resilience to fight a global threat such as climate change by removing the more localised pressures coming from the diving industry. To ‘undo’ the effect of bleaching. This provided with a great opportunity to use art as a mean to communicate our conservation message.

Our collaboration with Filipino-born artist and activist, AG Saño, brought this concept to life. We asked the attendants to make a pledge to follow Green Fins practices and by doing so bring the colour back to the bleached reef. It was a very successful and interactive way of delivering the message to a broad audience.

I see art as a powerful tool for science communication, it has no boundaries and it can touch all of us in many different ways.