‘From the Tiny to the Mighty’ is the Whale Tail painted by Annika Andresen and Bhakti Patel. Located at Auckland Museum, it’s the perfect pit stop to admire before you head inside.
Their Whale Tail is an appreciation and awareness of the importance, diversity and beauty of plankton. The gradient of the fluke represents the depth of the water column. The tip of the fluke is shallow, with light penetrating through. In the shallow water, phytoplankton is dominant. Requiring light to photosynthesise, these organisms dominate the upper part of the water column. As you move down to the blackness of the depths, zooplankton appear. Using the beauty of plankton’s diversity and alien-like forms, they want to raise the awareness of how human impacts from climate change and pollution affect plankton.
Though they are microscopic in size, plankton are the unseen heroes of entire marine ecosystems. They provide food to an enormous variety of species, from tiny shellfish to whales. They have such a vital role in our oceans including as the food source of Bryde’s whales, as well as other baleen whales, and Annika and Bhakti hope to engage the public to protect the tiny to the mighty.
Annika Andresen wants to take every New Zealander to our ocean, to fall in love, and to fight for its survival.
Bhakti Patel’s enthusiasm for the ocean comes from a lifelong dream of becoming a marine scientist. After obtaining a Masters in Marine Science, Bhakti worked as an Educator, Marine Biology Technician, and Team Leader at the University of Auckland. Bhakti wants to bridge the gap between scientists and the public. Using different forms of communication, she shares her knowledge and experiences in the hope of encouraging young Kiwis to take action to protect our ocean.
The women met each other at BLAKE where they both previously worked and where Annika was previously a BLAKE Ambassador back in 2016. They got involved with the Whales Tales Campaign when they were both invited to the opening night on behalf of BLAKE to show support for the campaign and discovered that they had a story of their own to tell. Upon the realisation of their entire concept as well as title that night, they signed up to create their very own tail. Funnily enough, neither of these women are artists by trade.
Bhakti explained that “WWF definitely took a leap of faith in our skills and skillsets. We have experience in painting but not in professional sense. We learnt a lot of our technique from school but we have no formal training. Both Annika and I do photography and video making for work so there is some other creative activities we get involved with.”
Annika, however, “did do a Masters of Architecture, which involved a range of different media. It what was more important for [them] to tell the story and get people to see the creatures that [they] are inspired by at work, and then being able to put this on a public platform.”
Bhakti currently works at in the research team at Auckland Museum as a Marine Scientist, with her main project being around the Kermadec Islands. Annika is working alongside her on the same project but from a logistics point of view as a Project Manager for a marine organisation called Ink Fish.
Both women have thoroughly enjoyed their process of creating their Whales Tail this year and Bhakti has referred to this experience as a time of discovery for her,
“Even though you’re a scientist and people think you know lots, you don’t know everything. Just discovering the different plankton around the world, around the deep and shallow parts of the oceans, away from New Zealand. Another piece that has been really interesting for me is being able to communicate through a different and creative way. Not just through imagery, but being able to use a different skill set to highlight how awesome plankton are. It’s been a big learning curve for me.”
Annika agrees by exclaiming that “it started as a side project that we wanted to do, but it’s turned out to be a lot bigger”.
Both artists are both incredible spokespeople for the Hauraki Gulf and the environment overall. Annika previously worked as a senior Virtual Reality Environmental Educator at BLAKE, and she was able to share her passion with young Kiwis every day. Her background before her architecture degree was in scuba diving, so she has seen first-hand the changes over time throughout the Gulf. However, Annika assured us that there is still hope as the marine environment is incredibly resilient and she is excited to see organisations such as WWF stepping up to help our marine life.
Sponsor: Auckland War Memorial Museum
Auckland War Memorial Museum is one of New Zealand’s first Museums. The Museum tells the story of New Zealand, its place in the Pacific and its people. The Museum is a war memorial for the province of Auckland and holds one of New Zealand’s top three heritage libraries.
It has pre-eminent Māori and Pacific collections, significant natural history resources and major social and military history collections, as well as decorative arts and pictorial collections.
WHALE TAIL DAMAGE
Each Whale Tail is a work of art, and deserves to be admired and appreciated as such. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that everyone will treat the Whale Tails with respect. If you come across a damaged Tail, please text the Tail name, location and a brief description of the damage to 022 042 9074.