Jellyfish Fantastic: Increasing Ocean Literacy through Creative Design and Participation

Jellyfish Fantastic aims to increase ocean literacy by using jellyfish as ambassadors of our seas. By improving ocean literacy people will place more value on our oceans and will ultimately be more willing to conserve them. Why jellyfish? Jellyfish are beautiful and mesmerising animals and not just animals than sting. By showing the diversity and important roles that jellyfish play in marine systems we can highlight how interconnected our marine life is e.g. how juvenile fish depend on jellyfish for protection, how jellyfish contribute to carbon sequestration. However, to capture public attention we need something that is different, stimulating and creative, to make people see jellyfish and our oceans in a different light. Jellyfish Fantastic will achieve this by creating a jellyfish pop-up garden in Blarney Castle and Gardens and another location. The garden will have an aquarium with live jellyfish and will be surrounded by poisonous and stinging plants and plants that look like jellyfish with lots of Ernst Haeckel inspired art to inspire and help with interpretation. We aim to submit a much larger and bolder version of this concept to the Bloom Garden Festival (for opening in June 2022) so that this idea is exposed to potentially 10,000s of visitors. We also aim to hold a jellyfish art competition to co-create a Jellyfish Art Installation to tell the positive story of jellyfish that will inspire and create deep learning through the process to artists but also to those who are interested in art and science.