SAN DIEGO — An art exhibit in San Diego brings guests face-to-face with the challenges climate change has on our local kelp forests.

Swimming through the giant kelp forest off the coast of San Diego fills Oriana Poindexter with joy; now, she’s bringing her passion out of the water and onto the walls of Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Poindexter is a photographer and marine scientist who uses a technique called cyanotype to capture the beauty of the kelp she collects while free diving.

What You Need To Know

  • Hold Fast is an immersive art exhibit at Birch Aquarium

  • It explores the impact of climate change on the local kelp forests through the lens of three local artists and scientists

  • La Jolla is famous for its giant kelp forests

  • Scientists say many have declined in size by nearly 90% because of a spike in coastal ocean water temperatures

“Every time I make one of these prints, I have to go diving first,” she said. “That is a wonderful excuse to get me in the water a lot. I kind of developed this intersection that has been really rewarding.”

Poindexter is one artist featured in Hold Fast, an immersive art installation that explores local kelp forests and climate change.

La Jolla is famous for its giant kelp forests but scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography say many have declined in size by nearly 90% because of a spike in coastal ocean water temperatures in 2014 and 2015.

Megan Dickerson is Birch Aquarium’s director of exhibits and co-curator of the installation. She says the artists are also scientists who use their unique skills to raise awareness about how climate change impacts local ecosystems.

“Kelp forests are often out of sight, out of mind for most people,” Dickerson said. “We wanted to create the sense of what it would feel like to go through a kelp forest as you navigate.”

Whether it’s weaving through life-sized kelp, spotlighting animals who live in the kelp forest, or exploring what we can do to rebuild them, Dickerson believes we can all play a part in protecting our world.

“When you leave here, I want you to feel like you are more of an advocate, that you are reinforcing your identity as somebody who is part of that bigger system, who notices the little things and the big things and knows what you can do,” she said.

Visitors can come face-to-face with local species via gyotaku prints (the traditional Japanese method of printing fish) by artist Dwight Hwang. They can also look into the tiny world of kelp propagation with Scripps Oceanography PhD student Mohammad Sedarat.

Poindexter says she’ll continue to document the changes in the kelp forest as a part of her artistic process and hopes Hold Fast gives hope and sparks change.

“That habitat is like directly offshore here. It is ours. It’s accessible. You can go visit it. You can develop your own relationship with it,” she said. 

Poindexter says she never kills the kelp to collect it for her art. Work is now underway by scientists at the Scripps Institution and other scientific organizations to restore these forests.

Hold Fast will be on display until Sept. 2024.