MUSEUM
ATTRACTIONS
Clockwise from top left, Inercia depicts a man watching tv, oblivious to the world; The Lost
Correspondent; The figures in Viccisitudes were cast from local children; The sculptor at work
It’s a new environment to work in and is subject to different forces. There have been some terrible artifi- cial reef projects where people haven’t fixed things well enough. One pro- ject around the coast of Carolina, US used old car tyres. The first storm that came along ripped them out, rolled them over the reef and destroyed all the coral, so it’s really important to ensure they’re fixed.
What are they made from? They’re made out of specialised marine cement that’s 20 times more durable than normal construction cement and impervious to the salt water. I can’t use metal as it would cor- rode and break down. Ninety per cent of public sculpture has some kind of metal in the armature or construction, so the challenge is to design objects differently. I use armatures made out of inert fibreglass and geo-textiles.
How do you ensure the sculptures are protected? Mainly through education. We ask the guides to explain that these are artifi- cial reefs and have signs underwater asking people not to touch the sculp- tures. But nowadays, everything’s a photo opportunity – people stand next
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to the sculptures and put their arms around them for a photo and then we get a breakage.
What are the challenges? Firstly, it's getting permission. Before starting, I have to do a very strict envi- ronmental impact assessment for the government. That’s quite a difficult part of the process, depending upon the location – it’s very difficult to get permits in America, for example. Navigating the weather and schedul- ing deployment is always difficult. If a dense wind falls it makes it far harder to work. Another challenge is the unpredictable nature of the sea. It can work in my favour – I might find some beautiful pink sponges and amazing coral growing, which is fantastic. But there can be undesirable effects.
We had an issue where we went along one day and all the sculptures were covered in thick algae. We couldn’t see anything at all, which was worrying. We cleaned it off half of them and three months later, the ones we’d cleaned had grown back worse, whereas the algae had started to disappear on the ones we hadn’t touched. That was quite a lesson in not messing with things too much. A year later the algae had gone completely from all of them.
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What are you working on now? I’ve just finished working at MUSA and have relocated to Europe. I’m in talks with people in Florida, Malaysia, and the Maldives. It’s fascinating because each place has very different condi- tions and the works would evolve very differently according to the location. One of my aims is to advance the technology and research that allows more marine life to colonise the sculp- tures and create works that are more interactive for visitors. I’m currently devising some installations that start on land and then go into the sea. I’m also doing some pieces that rise out of the water so people can dive off them and others with lights so people can scuba dive at night. I have plenty of ideas, which I can't
reveal yet, but at this moment in time I’ve just begun an exciting project off the coast of Lanzarote. The crys- tal blue Atlantic waters surrounding the island are home to a completely different marine ecosystem and the project will discuss the topic of climate change and migration. It is supported by the Achenbach Art Foundation and the regional government. l
This feature first appeared in Attractions Management Issue 1 2014
ISSUE 2 2014 © cybertrek 2014
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