Underwater Museum of Cannes opens with sculptures to draw public attention to decline of sealife
The famous faces in Cannes are typically seen at the resort town’s annual international film festival, but this year, there are different types of portraits making waves in the French Riviera.
These are the newly unveiled six large stone face sculptures, each of them weighing about 9,000 kilograms and rooted to the seabed off the island of Sainte-Marguerite in the Mediterranean Sea.
The works form the Underwater Museum of Cannes, designed by British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor. The
submerged exhibit was nearly four years in the making.
Each of Taylor’s portraits was inspired by the face of a local resident, with designs then supersized as the sculptures measure more than two metres in height.
The mask theme is a nod to the legend of the Man in the Iron Mask, who was supposedly imprisoned in this coastal region of France. They are not meant as a reference to the face masks associated with the ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic.
It’s also hoped that these towering underwater sculptures will help draw public attention to the declining state of the Mediterranean Sea, which once teemed with marine life but now suffers from the pressures of overtourism, overfishing and pollution.
The Underwater Museum of Cannes will encourage tourists to explore the submerged sculptures, which are free to visit. Simultaneously, it will act as a way to keep swimmers, snorkellers and divers away from the remaining natural coral reefs found in the region, giving them a chance to rebuild.
There’s another important environmental role that the museum hopes to play. The project aims to attract marine fauna and flora to find a new habitat on the surface of these masks.
To facilitate this underwater habitat, each of the stone faces has been constructed out of marine-safe pH-neutral cement.
The Mediterranean Sea is far from the only body of water that is in environmental trouble. More than 40 per cent of natural coral reefs globally have been lost in the past few decades.
Experts from the World Resources Institute expect that 90 per cent of coral reefs will be in danger by 2030, and all of them by 2050.
The sculptural park in France is Taylor’s first project in the Mediterranean, but the artist has created hundreds of underwater sculptures around the world, each of
The six sculptures weigh 9,000kg and are designed by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor
them focusing on conservation. Some of his most famous projects include the Museo Subacuatico de Arte in Mexico, one of the largest underwater art attractions in the world; the Museo Atlantico, the first underwater art museum in the Atlantic Ocean; and the Coralarium, situated in the clear waters of the Maldives.
Taylor’s next project is another underwater exhibit that is due to open in Cyprus later this year.