About

Our mission is to bring a broad coalition into the emerging movement of kelp forest recovery to help change policy, support restoration work, grow local blue economies, and inspire the next generation of ocean stewards. 

Through a series of creative communications and outreach initiatives over the next few years, the Above/Below campaign aims to tell the story of bull kelp across its entire bioregion—from Monterey to the coasts of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska—as well as to connect and amplify the collective voices and impact of the regionally-specific work underway on behalf of bull kelp forests coastwide. We believe that by combining art and science through creative storytelling strategies, we can share the importance of kelp forests with a broad audience, inspire engagement in local community action, and foster a culture of ocean stewardship over the long term.

Josie Iselin is an artist, author, and designer who has been telling seaweed and kelp stories for over a decade. Her two books An Ocean Garden: The Secret Life of Seaweed (2014, reprinted 2023) and The Curious World of Seaweed (Heyday 2019), tap her profound understanding of seaweed natural history and her deep connections within the seaweed science community. Her work is an extraordinary expression of both art and science. Josie directs content development for the Above/Below campaign and is the lead author of the campaign’s webstory, The Mysterious World of Bull Kelp. She teaches in the School of Design at San Francisco State University. Josieiselin.com

Marianna Leuschel was the director of L Studio, a communications design agency, for 20 years and currently runs New Agency to develop communication strategies and design campaigns for a range of clients in ocean and land stewardship. She is particularly skilled at envisioning what hasn’t been done and working with multiple stakeholders to create stories about our human relationship to the natural world, and our responsibility as stewards. Marianna now leads the campaign for Above/Below, working with creative teams to generate new ideas for communication outreach and engagement strategies and implementation of campaign initiatives. newagencyca.com

We believe in the power of collaboration. Please join us.