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The Listener is made from casts of human ears (left); The sheer weight of the sculptures makes installation expensive (right)


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 fi gurative forms, with concepts of humans work- ing 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 how we’re so focused on our little worlds that we forget the bigger picture. There are hundreds of sculptures ranging from The Silent Evolution – a crowd of 450 people which informs visitors on the various stages of reef evolution; a series of suburban dwell- ings designed to house individual marine species; The Listener – a lone fi gure assembled entirely from casts of human ears and a recording device to


ISSUE 2 2014 © cybertrek 2014


the amazing things that are hap- pening underneath our oceans and have that in the forefront of their minds. Some of our coral reefs could be the fi rst eco sys- tems we lose if we continue with the problems associated with global warming.


monitor the reef; and Reclamation, an angelic female form with wings that are propagated with living coral. One of the large installations – The Silent Evolution – took me two years and an amazing amount of hard work and I was really pleased with it. Then I did a piece called Banker, which is a guy with his head in the sand, and that got just as much response and it only took a month to make and was really easy. I’ve learnt that you can have very potent images that can say just as much as the big, arduous projects.


What’s your message? I hope people have more of an under- standing of, and more respect for, all


What are the costs? The construction isn’t expensive because the materials aren’t dear, but the installations are costly. We want the sculptures to weigh as much as possible so that they stay in place on the seabed and are very resilient – they’re planned to last for hundreds of years, so need to be very well con- structed – but the heavier they are, the more expensive the logistics become. It’s a balance between working the two out so it becomes possible.


How are the sculptures secured? They’re drilled into the ocean fl oor, but we rely on the weight to help. We have to keep the centre of gravity very low.


Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital 43


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