How Innocean combined Ken Done, sharks, and a museum using ‘CI’ - children’s imagination

When marine biologist Dr Leonardo Guida observed that the sharks and rays exhibition Innocean was creating used 'CI' - children’s imagination - instead of AI, the agency knew it was onto a good thing.

Its client, the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), asked kids to make artworks based only on scientific descriptions. Over 1,500 did: submitting paintings, drawings, and even paper mache sculptures. The entries were then handed over to some of Australia’s most iconic artists - including Ken Done, Jonathan Zawada, Rosie Deacon, and Blak Douglas - who created works inspired by them, now on display at the Australian Museum.

_{Artist Jenny Turpin with Inara}

“Throughout the creative development of this project, AI was becoming more popular and developing at an astonishing rate,” Innocean’s executive creative director Wez Hawes tells LBB.

“During one presentation to the AMCS, we did discuss the similarities of generating artworks by entering prompts. I think Dr Leonardo Guida remarked that we were using CI, rather than AI, which felt like a poignant moment of the project.”

Wez confesses that he “did sneakily insert some of the marine biologists’ scientific descriptions into Midjourney to see what it generated” at one point. The results were good, but “they lacked the charm, imperfections, and originality of anything our school kids had submitted."

The idea began when the creatives, Pamela Parrelli and Charlotte Berry, talked about a dad who brought his child’s artworks to life. “We knew there was something in this idea, but didn’t know what,” Wez says.

The agency sat on that seed of an idea for almost a year “before the perfect opportunity and brief from the AMCS came up,” Pamela says, and it took another two years from conception to the exhibition opening. The Australian Museum proved the perfect home for the exhibition, because “the Australian Museum and AMCS had been wanting to collaborate with each other for a long time, and this idea became the perfect vehicle.”

_{Ken Done with Leah}

The opportunity wasn’t a specific brief, but a challenge from Dr Guida: to change perceptions of sharks as ‘fearsome predators’ and raise the profiles of lesser-known and critically endangered sharks and rays.

“What’s incredible is that these sharks and rays are so rare, and live so deep below the surface, that hardly any visual material of them exists,” Wez notes.

“We turned this negative into our opportunity to engage kids to create artworks during the summer holidays.”

Pamela explains that the agency chose artists known for exploring the environment in their work, like Jenny Turpin, who chose to respond to four-year-old Inara Wilson’s submission with a seaweed sculpture. Jewellery designers Sarah & Sebastian created a shark necklace set in bronze and diamonds, inspired by 13-year-old Zara Pease.

_{The making of Sarah & Sebastian's snake necklace}

Pamela notes that one of her favourite parts of the project was witnessing a real bond form between the artists and children. “When Wynne Prize winner Billy Bain and 10-year-old Barnaby Snow met for the first time, both skaters and avid ocean lovers - it was kismet. Each inspired the other in equally major ways.”

_{Blak Douglas and Gryf}

_{Blak Douglas and Gryf at the exhibition's opening}

When the exhibition was unveiled, “I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house,” Wez says. Pamela adds that the creative team set out to turn Australians into the “ultimate protectors” for sharks and rays, so she felt moved seeing the exhibition space filled with people.

Wez says Innocean is now speaking with other museums and spaces around Australia about taking on the exhibition once it finishes up at the Australian Museum on 8 December.

“That would be ideal,” he says. “We’re also discussing what to do with the artworks, as so many have been kindly donated by the artists to the exhibition cause. Some might be auctioned to raise funds for the much needed shark and ray conservation work the AMCS does.”

In the meantime, he hopes people sign a petition to protect sharks and rays, and remember “the infinite potential of a creative mind to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Young or old.”