Lena Vargas is a talented freelance illustrator based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Her lush coral reef alphabet project, titled Speaking Coral, is an ode to those marine animals and a way of raising awareness of their preservation, mainly to children.
This project is born from my admiration and curiosity for these amazing invertebrate creatures. I wanted to create a voice for Coral, to raise awareness that there is a whole magical world under the water that is hugely important to the life and survival of many marine species, our oceans, us humans and the entire planet. Each letter represents a different fact on Coral and the geometric lines and particles around them are actually trash bits referring to the on-growing issue with plastic and garbage all over the world. This project is currently held as an expo at AquaRio – Aquarium at Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. An award winning aquarium in coral research. This alphabet is also being integrated into their educational program to help children learn about coral species.
Lena Vargas