“If my version of joy in 2025 is creating more places to escape, then I’m happy to be doing it.” — Mike Bennett
It’s not every day you get to speak to someone whose job title is “Public Joy Creator,” but in the colorful, hyper-saturated cutout world of Mike Bennett, that title still feels far too small.
Portland’s resident art wizard has made a career pivot from preschool teacher to a bringer of wonder, whimsy, and just a touch of educational magic to the Pacific Northwest. And now, he’s going bigger—and deeper—than ever before. Get ready for Bennett’s latest immersive installation:The Portland Aquarium, a fantastical undersea journey housed in a brand-new space in downtown Portland.
Opening June 6, this isn’t your average fish tank experience. There are no velvet ropes, no hushed tones, and certainly no dry placards mounted on beige walls. Instead, visitors will plunge into “Bennett’s Bay,” an original world filled with oversized sea creatures, vibrant coral-scapes, animated tide pools, and more interactive storytelling than your average kids’ cartoon.
While Bennett’s earnest love of bringing joy to the masses is real, there are some pieces with his 8-month-old daughter in mind. “There’s a blue wall and there’s tons of red coral on it—and that’s for her,” Bennett says, “I wonder if she’ll react to that the same way she reacts to her (ocean) book.”
From Dinosaurs to Deep Sea
If you’ve followed Bennett’s work — from the pandemic-era A to Zoo series to the Jurassic-sized charm of Dinolandia to the immersive Wonderwood Mini-Golf— you already know that this guy doesn’t just make art, he builds worlds, each of which feels like it was ripped from your Saturday morning cartoons, reassembled with plywood and paint, and infused with a sense of happiness.
Janet and Also Janet at Wonderwood Mini-Golf
Unlike Bennett’s previous work, however, this installation comes with a serious dose of marine biology thanks to a collaboration with the Elakha Alliance, a local nonprofit dedicated to the reintroduction of sea otters to the Oregon coast. Marine biologist Chanel Hason has helped anchor the whimsy in legit oceanography. Every guest receives a compendium — a field guide featuring real facts and Bennett’s delightfully weird illustrations of the sea life they’ll encounter through their journey in Bennett’s Bay.
“Chanel is a real marine biologist,” Bennett says. “She’s part of the Elakha Alliance trying to bring sea otters back. And she’s made big edits—like, ‘This doesn’t work. We gotta change this.’ It’s made the space better.”
No Wrong Way to Wonder
Unlike most aquariums, Bennett’s isn’t about peering into glass enclosures. This is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of place. You might go looking for “Gilly,” a lost goldfish hidden throughout the exhibit, or follow an animated storyline featuring Dr. Wade C. Bennett, a fictional oceanographer stuck at the bottom of the sea searching for a giant squid. Or maybe you’ll just take selfies next to a character that looks suspiciously like that one weird uncle.
“I don’t get to tell people how to enjoy my art,” Bennett says. “But I’m glad people enjoy it in their own ways.”
Bennett knows better than to expect people to absorb a linear story. After several attempts at a walk-through narrative at Wonderwood Mini-Golf, he realized most people didn’t read the signs. So this time, the layout is more intuitive: an imagined descent into deeper and darker marine layers, culminating in an animated tide pool and a call to action about ocean conservation.
Built by Community, For Community
The entire build has been scrappy and Portland-as-hell. Volunteers from Instagram showed up to help paint floors and construct coral reefs. Some are even becoming paid staff. Some of the creatures are hand-drawn and digitally printed on plywood—tougher than the fully hand-painted ones Bennett made for the Oregon Zoo, which, fun fact, did not survive the sprinkler system.
There’s also a message here — woven into the fun, layered in between the puns and giant seagulls — about reconnecting with your community. As adults, making friends is harder than it used to be. But at Bennett’s installations, the barriers drop. Conversations start. Kids teach their parents about cassowaries. Grown-ups laugh at bad jokes hidden on a wall. People slow down and just begin to absorb the world around them.
The Deets
Portland Aquarium opens to the public on June 6 at 603 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97205. Tickets are $12 for an all-day pass, and kids 3 and under are free. That gets you unlimited access to the space and your own illustrated field guide to the creatures of Bennett’s Bay.
“I want people to walk into their TV set from 1993,” Bennett says. “If that makes someone smile, then I’ve done my job.”
Whether you’re a kid, a kid-at-heart, or just someone in desperate need of a serotonin boost, this underwater world is the kind of place Portland didn’t know it needed — but Mike Bennett absolutely knew we deserved.
