OCEAN ART HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
Aresort in the Maldives has teamed up with a British artist and environmentalist to create a world first — a semi-submerged art gallery. Jason deCaires Taylor made roughly 30 sculptures, all based on casts of real people, and stood them inside a giant cube to create the installation known as the Coralarium. It stands in the sea about 50m from the beach of the Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi resort in the Shaviyani Atoll. Because of its location in an intertidal zone — essentially the area beyond the shore that’s exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide — the sculptures spend a part of each day completely submerged, and a part of the day exposed. Taylor describes it as both a sculpture park and a marine sanctuary.
“This a place of preservation, conservation and education,” he said in a statement. “Together with the resort, we hope to raise awareness for the protection of Maldivian coral reefs.
He thinks of his artwork as a way “for people to see [the ocean] as a delicate place, worthy of our protection”.
Taylor also created the world’s first underwater sculpture park — the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park — in the Caribbean Sea off the west coast of Grenada.
The Fairmont is a 120-villa luxury resort whose Sirru Fen Fushi name translates to Secret Water Island. For now, travellers can visit the sculpture park on a guided tour with the resort’s resident marine biologist.
● See fairmont.com/maldives.