The Mediterranean disappears beneath the feet of thousands of people at FIB

• The Fundación Azul Marino installation, featuring more than 100 Mediterranean fish illustrated on the ground, gradually disappeared as over 135,000 people walked across it during the three days of the festival
• The action sought to turn the audience into the involuntary protagonist of a metaphor about human impact on the sea
• Screen projections across the site under the slogan “A sea full of life” and awareness stickers in the venue’s toilets accompanied the installation throughout the festival
• Fundación Azul Marino is sharing the final result of the installation and the outcome of the action through its social media channels
• The foundation marks its fifth consecutive year of partnership with the Benicàssim festival

Oropesa del Mar (Castellón). The Fundación Azul Marino installation, with illustrations of more than a hundred Mediterranean species, has been fading away over the three days of the festival and the passage of more than 135,000 attendees. The action formed part of the collaboration agreement between Fundación Azul Marino and the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim (FIB), which this year reaches its fifth consecutive edition.

A metaphor completed by the audience itself

Thursday 16 July began with a hundred Mediterranean species drawn on the ground of the FIB site. As the festival went on, thousands of footsteps from attendees made them disappear with every step, without anyone being aware of it, completing the metaphor about human impact on the sea that Fundación Azul Marino set out to convey.

The action was completed with videos projected on the screens of the different stages under the slogan “A sea full of life”, and with conservation-message stickers installed in the venue’s toilets, which over these days captured the attention of thousands of attendees.

“Every footstep that has erased a species is, without anyone intending it, a small reminder of what happens when we do not care for the sea”, explained Pablo García, director of Fundación Azul Marino. “After five years with FIB we keep finding new ways to tell people that the sea needs us, and this time it was the audience itself that, unknowingly, completed the action”.

The disappearance of the illustrations could be followed through the Fundación Azul Marino social media channels during the festival days. The Foundation now shares the final result of the installation, with images of how the site’s ground looked after the public passed through, as well as an assessment of the action.

About Fundación Azul Marino

Fundación Azul Marino is an organisation dedicated to the conservation of marine species and to environmental education in the province of Castellón. In collaboration with Fundación Oceanogràfic, it manages the Marine Species Conservation Centre at Bellver Blue Tech Zone, where it cares for and monitors specimens of threatened marine fauna before returning them to the sea.