Aquarium of the Pacific to host Urban Ocean Festival

Long Beach would not be Long Beach without the Pacific Ocean.

The Aquarium of the Pacific’s seventh aual Urban Ocean Festival is scheduled to take place Saturday and next Sunday. Event organizers are seeking to give visitors an improved understanding of the coections between Califoia’s seventh most populous city and the planet’s largest ocean.

“The big take away is trying to highlight the coection between the ocean and people and wildlife,” said Nam Ly, an advertising manager at the aquarium who is coordinating this year’s event.

Ly went on to describe a “unique and symbiotic” relationship between Long Beachers and the Pacific Ocean that extends from aquatic recreation to the city’s main industry — shipping and logistics.

The Urban Ocean Festival’s two-day schedule includes screenings of the aquarium’s Urban Ocean film, children’s presentations, sustainable seafood tastings and the aual Trashin’ Fashion show, which features models wearing clothing fabricated from junk materials.

For example, Jaya Girard, a student at Orange Coast College, designed a dress using plastic bags instead of fabric. She also repurposed a large number of discarded pop tabs to mimic the appearance of chain mail and adoed the garment with shimmering fragments of old compact discs.

“If we keep destroying our planet like this, one day we may be all wearing trash, but we will not be looking like this,” said Girard, 17, of Silverado Canyon while a model displayed the dress during a preview event at the aquarium.

The youngest designer to submit a dress to the Trashin’ Fashion show is 14-year-old Fountain Valley High School student Ning Tung Tong, who fabricated her design using such materials as empty Capri Sun pouches, bubble wrap and shopping bags.

An art exhibition also is part of festival plans. Sculptor Kristina Drake submitted a rendition of an octopus she formed from polymer and epoxy materials.

Drake, 31, of Long Beach said she is drawn to the eight-legged animals in part due to their intelligence. She also views the creatures as being simultaneously relatable and alien in nature.

“They’re fun to sculpt. The have a lot of movement and dynamism,” she said.

Urban Ocean Events taking place on aquarium grounds do not require payment of any additional fees beyond admission to the aquarium. Cruises of the local harbor can be booked for an additional price.

Information: 562-590-3100.

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