I had hoped to post something refreshing today, a day where we yet again reach temperatures above the 100 degree mark. Maybe art installed below the surface of the sea would do the trick. Seeing the sculptures suspended in that green/ blue element might indeed have a cooling effect when imagining yourself among them. In contrast, thinking about those sculptures, as the artist intended, might make you hot all over again, since they tackle ocean preservation, the perils of climate change and the refugee crisis in ways that impress on us the dire facts we are facing.

Crossing the Rubicon, 2017, 41 life-sized sculptures and a wall, Lanzarote, Canary Islands.

I found Jason deCaires Taylor‘s work on a site called ArtworksforChange which addresses environmental issues and has a particularly nifty link: featured tours of selected art projects by environmental organizations like Earthday Network, Oceana, Global Footprint Network, World Wildlife Fund and The Natural Resources Defense Council. (I’ve linked to their tour as just one example.)

DeCaires Taylor, trained at the London School of Arts, has lived, worked and installed his sculptures made of marine concrete (pH neutral cement, fibers and aggregates) across the world, in different oceans. Whether executed in Mexico, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, Cyprus or Australia, the work is designed for impact on many different levels.

It engages communities who live by and from the ocean and brings them (and their ecological plight after hurricanes, for example) attention as well as tourism $$.

It provides new habitat for marine life, from surfaces that encourage coral and sponge growth to spacing that helps aggregate fish to constellations that provide sheltered homes for crustaceans.

And, importantly, it lures divers away from sensitive coral reefs to dive at these underwater museum parks instead.

Here is a short clip where he explains his approach and offers visual footage of the process.

To rebuild natural habitats and mitigate damage caused by tourism to at-risk underwater areas, the sculptor engages in a collaborative process between scientists and other experts which helps him build up a knowledge of materials and conservation that defines his work. He also collaborates with local communities (to the tune of 850 life sized sculptures by now, encompassing everyone from yoga instructors and fishermen to nuns and a two-year old boy,) which gives them a sense of ownership of the reefs. His philosophy as expressed in an Podcast from the Modern Met:

“I think artists have a moral obligation,” he explains to us. “We’re really important for helping to shape people’s feelings and emotions and inspire people and warn people about what’s happening. And I think scientists are very good at producing the data that supports it. But I think what’s really important is to be able to emotionally connect to people to help inspire social change. And I think that’s where we come in.”

His newest project has just been launched off the coast of the resort city of Ayia Napa in Cyprus, featuring over 90 figurative and nature-inspired sculptures installed at the seabed of a marine protected area. Here is a sampling of many of the new sculptures from his website.

Cyprus is an example of the threats to our natural world in more ways than one. The island, like so many of the neighboring regions in the Mediterranean, has faced incredible loss through fires, human life above all. We know what pollutes the oceans. We also know what contributes to wild fires. But in this particular case there is a nasty twist. A lot of the houses with large yards on the island are owned by British people or other Europeans able to afford an island getaway (Cyprus has an intense night life and party scene as well.) Many of these absentee owners have not traveled there for almost 2 years due to risks of Covid-19 with the consequence that their yards, usually tended before or upon arrival, sprouted large amounts of high and drying grasses or other weeds – all fueling the fires in ways that never happened when owners were present. In reverse, many Cypriots usually leave Cyprus during the hot summers. Because of the pandemic they stayed home, and subsequently grilling, barbecues or careless cigarettes have caused multiple incendiary incidents. (Ref.)

It is obviously a conflagration of dire events. And we are reminded, AGAIN, by this week’s UN Climate Science Report that theoretically we could do something, but that time is running out and the current inertia leaves no grounds for optimism. This NYT article speaks to the history and the potential future.

Giant contrasts between fires, floods, rising oceans, but they all have destructive power in common. Maybe we’ll join those underwater sculpture populations soon whether we’d like to or not – now there is a freezing thought.

Photographs are of natural maritime sculptures, the only one this non-diver has access to.

Music today is from Cyprus, with both Greek and Turkish artists united.