Creatures & Creators returns: A one-day dive into design, science, and touch

This year's Creatures & Creators workshop looked a little different. Where 2025's edition unfolded over three days, 2026 packed all the wonder, collaboration, and discovery into a single action-packed day on 17 July. 

A collaboration between our Ocean Campus and the Cape Town Creative Academy, the workshop brought together Grade 10 Marine Sciences and Design learners for a hands-on project that fuses science and creativity. This year's brief had a new dimension: Rather than designing with young, sighted Two Oceans Aquarium visitors in mind, learners were challenged to create a tactile, science-informed art piece for visitors who are blind or visually impaired. 

Life in Rock Pools 

The 2026 Creatures & Creators theme was "Life in Rock Pools". Working in pairs, Marine Sciences and Design learners set out together to capture the biodiversity of South Africa's rocky shore ecosystems in individual clay tiles designed to be explored by touch rather than sight. 

The day began at the Two Oceans Aquarium, with an interactive Marine Sciences lesson on rocky shore ecology, covering the invertebrates and seaweeds that call rock pools home and the relationships between them. Learners were also introduced to biomimicry, which looks at how adaptations found in marine organisms have shaped innovations in science, engineering, architecture and design. 

From there, it was into the Aquarium itself for a guided tour, where each learner chose a species that caught their eye and sketched it in detail. These observational sketches, grounded in real anatomy and texture, became the blueprint for their clay tiles. 

From sketch to tile 

The workshop then moved to the Cape Town Creative Academy, where learners got a practical introduction to ceramic techniques and the properties of clay. Guided by experienced facilitators, they translated their sketches into tactile clay tiles, thinking carefully about texture, shape, and relief so that each piece could be understood by touch alone. 

Throughout, Marine Sciences and Design learners worked side by side, pairing scientific accuracy with artistic skill to produce something both visually engaging and genuinely accessible. 

More than a tile 

The finished tiles will form part of an educational display for the Two Oceans Aquarium's Blind Awareness Day; each paired with descriptive information in both print and Braille. It's a small shift in format from previous years, but a meaningful one in focus: Using the workshop not just to teach learners about marine life, but to get them thinking about who gets left out when we design only for sight, and how creativity can help close that gap. 

The day wrapped up with an awards ceremony attended by learners, educators, parents, and project partners, celebrating the creativity and teamwork behind the project. 

As one learner put it: 

"I loved combining science and art to create something that will help other people learn." 

Another reflected on how the Aquarium visit shaped their work: 

"Seeing the rock pool organisms at the Aquarium before making our tiles helped me notice details I would have otherwise missed." 

Through Creatures & Creators, learners didn't just deepen their understanding of rocky shore ecology and biomimicry. They came away with a stronger sense of universal design, and the role creativity can play in making science accessible to everyone.