Portland Aquarium (art installation)
| Portland Aquarium | |
|---|---|
 The installation's logo | |
 | |
| Artist | Mike Bennett |
| Year | 2025 |
| Subject | Marine life |
| Location | Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
| 45°31′12″N 122°40′46″W / 45.5200°N 122.6795°W | |
Portland Aquarium is an art installation by American artist Mike Bennett, established in Portland, Oregon on June 6, 2025. The educational and immersive exhibit opened at Southwest Alder and Broadway in downtown Portland in collaboration with the nonprofit organization Elakha Alliance and Big Fish Lab. Portland Aquarium features approximately 100 cartoon paintings of various animals on plywood, some of which are animated. Visitors are provided a field guide developed by marine biologists, which also has illustrations of marine life by Bennett, and navigate a fictional environment with a story line plus works by composer RAC (André Allen Anjos).
Description
[edit]Mike Bennett's educational and immersive art installation Portland Aquarium operates at the intersection of Southwest Alder Street and Broadway in downtown Portland.[1] It features approximately 100 cartoon paintings of marine species including 20-foot-long whales, bubblegum pink-colored blobfish, deep-sea fish, and gulls.[2] Some artworks are hand-painted and others are digitally printed on plywood.[3] The gulls, which have flapping wings, are among animated artworks. There is also a "missing" goldfish named Gilly. Visitors receive a field guide developed by marine biologists to accompany the exhibit, which also features works by composer RAC (André Allen Anjos).[2]
Racket Magazine has called Portland Aquarium a "fantastical undersea journey" and described the fictional Bennett's Bay as "an original world filled with oversized sea creatures, vibrant coral-scapes, animated tide pools, and more interactive storytelling than your average kids' cartoon".[3] Cartoons are painted on the exhibit's exterior. Once inside, visitors enter the fictional research station Cascadia Marine Lab and meet the character Wade C. Bennett, a professor who is portrayed by Mike Bennett. The exhibit's storyline has guests work as "field observers" to identify species in six biomes using the provided field guides and to assist Wade C. Bennett, who is stranded at the bottom of the ocean after attempting to photograph a giant squid.[2] The field guide also has cartoon illustrations by Mike Bennett. He created one part of the exhibit, a blue wall with red coral, based on a book about the ocean that he has read to his daughter.[3]
History
[edit]
In March 2025, Willamette Week described Bennett's plans to open a "rotating, immersive educational play space for families" where Public Domain Coffee had operated a coffee shop. Bennett had recently signed a lease for the space and said the site would host "half-science, half-arts/DIY projects" and a gift shop with artworks from his various projects.[4][5] The Portland Business Journal also reported on Mike Bennett Studios' planned relocation to the building that housed Public Domain and a shop operated by Sprint Corporation. The newspaper said the studio would have "an arts-forward education space in the storefront that previously occupied a Sprint store, along with a gift shop and rotating educational, immersive art experience".[6]
Bennett and his business partner Teddy Albertson had been searching for a permanent space in downtown Portland since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The duo had also collaborated on other pop-up installations including Dinolandia (2022).[4] The Portland Business Journal said the studio's move was "part of the latest wave of office tenants committing to downtown Portland and efforts to revitalize the area".[7] Bennett had completed approximately 50 artworks for the first exhibit at the new location by March 2025. He planned to reveal the project's theme in April and open to the public in June.[4] Portland Aquarium opened on June 6, 2025, in a space that had been vacant for approximately five years. Previously, Bennett had installed A, B, Sea, an art exhibit featuring marine life, outside his home in 2021.[2][8] A, B, Sea sought to teach children about the alphabet and the ocean during the pandemic. It was attended by approximately 1,000 people and inspired Bennett to install art in public spaces.[2]
For Portland Aquarium, he collaborated with the local nonprofit organization Elakha Alliance (EA), which seeks to reintroduce sea otters to the Oregon Coast,[3] and Big Fish Lab to develop and install the exhibit over four months. EA marine biologist Chanel Hason "helped direct Bennett's art to more accurately represent the animals, while still giving him leeway to be playful", according to the Portland Tribune.[2] Volunteers recruited on social media assisted Bennett by painting floors and building coral reefs. Some of the volunteers became paid staff.[3] According to KPTV, he chose the location because "Bennett says it's important to have art downtown and he's happy to be the person to bring it here".[1]
Reception
[edit]Racket Magazine described the cartoon illustrations in the field guides as "delightfully weird" and said of the exhibit:
There's also a message here — woven into the fun, layered in between the puns and giant seagulls — about reconnecting with your community. As adults, making friends is harder than it used to be. But at Bennett's installations, the barriers drop. Conversations start. Kids teach their parents about cassowaries. Grown-ups laugh at bad jokes hidden on a wall. People slow down and just begin to absorb the world around them. Whether you're a kid, a kid-at-heart, or just someone in desperate need of a serotonin boost, this underwater world is the kind of place Portland didn't know it needed — but Mike Bennett absolutely knew we deserved.[3]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Kaplan, Ezra (2025-05-15). "Be Seen. Be Heard: Downtown Portland revitalization". KPTV. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ a b c d e f Seibold, Hannah (2025-05-29). "Experience the 'Portland Aquarium' — an upcoming art installation". Portland Tribune. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ a b c d e f "Diving Deep Into Wonder: The Portland Aquarium". Racket Magazine. 2025-05-11. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ a b c "Mike Bennett to Open Permanent Downtown Play Space for Kids". Willamette Week. 2025-03-07. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Andrews, Garrett (2025-04-14). "Portland's Pike Place". Oregon Business. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Edwards, Sara (March 10, 2025). "Mike Bennett Studios to move to downtown Portland". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Edwards, Sara (March 21, 2025). "PwC committing to downtown with new office lease". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Acker, Lizzy (2021-04-19). "Portland artist Mike Bennett is making his yard into a 'magical' aquarium alphabet this spring". The Oregonian. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
External links
[edit]- Portland Aquarium at Mike Bennett Studios
- Elise, Ayo (June 4, 2025). "Portland artist Mike Bennett to debut new interactive art experience". KPTV.
- Connor, Vickie. "The Portland Aquarium: Presented by Mike Bennett Studios". The Oregonian.