Clockwise from top: The underwater sculptures become a natural home to coral and reef fish; while the sculpture material isn’t costly its sheer weight makes the logistics of installation expensive; Jason deCaires Taylor wants to educate visitors on ocean ecology
What was your inspiration? I’m a sculptor and was mainly working on land and with the landscape. I was creating objects that had no functional purpose other than their artistic value – the world’s cluttered enough, we need more of a reason to make things. I came across the idea that if I worked underwater, these objects would not only discuss the boundaries of art, they’d create habitat space for sea life and be beneficial to the environment. That was the main driving force.
How did you get started? The first museum was in Grenada in 2006. I grew up in Spain, Portugal, Malaysia and the UK and happened to be living and teaching scuba diving in Grenada at the time. I’d had the idea for the underwater
sculptures for a while, so looked into how feasible it was and presented the concept to the local government. They were scep- tical, but interested, so I started small with a couple of pieces and added to it. It kept growing and more people started to help and support the project. Over the
AM 1 2014 ©cybertrek 2014
course of two years I built the first under- water sculpture park which contains 65 individual works and is called Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park. The government of Mexico, after seeing
this project, invited me to address some of the problems they have with high levels of tourism in Cancun. MUSA (Museo Subacuático de Arte) opened in 2009 and has 510 permanent sculptural works.
How do the museums benefit the environment? Prior to the museum, there was only one good snorkelling area in Grenada. All the boats would congregate in that area and there was damage to the reef from people jumping off boats and kicking corals and it was slowly deteriorating. I created another snorkelling site nearby to relieve some of that pressure – coral grows on the sculptures and fish live around them. It was a similar objective in Cancun.
The area has more than 750,000 visitors each year, so the objective was to try and manage those people and minimise the impact to the reef. The government wanted to start closing sections of the
reef down to allow them to rejuvenate and thrive, but the business community threatened to sue the government for closing down their economy and insisted on an alternative offer. It was at that point that they contacted me.
How has the community benefited? The statistics are amazing. In Cancun, the diving has increased by 30 per cent in a few years and now gets over 80,000 visitors annually. In Grenada, the area never used to have visitors, but now gets 20,000 people a year. Seventy per cent of divers go to the museum site rather than the original reef. It’s in the top three TripAdvisor ratings and got voted by National Geographic as one of the Wonders of the World.
What are the sculptures? Predominantly I use figurative forms, with concepts of humans working in harmony with nature. I strive to bring in themes of the threat to the reef and how we’re oblivious to what happens under water. I’ve sculpted a guy on a sofa watching TV, showing the irony of the way we live and
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