Art

Rock & Water

Sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor evokes the sacred, populating underwater seascapes with corporeal objets d’art, meant to be assimilated by the sea.

Published

2 years ago

September 26, 2022

InDEPTH

Text, photography and art courtesy of Jason deCaires Taylor.

*Crossing the Rubicon, Museo Atlántico, Lanzarote, Spain, Atlantic Ocean*

“Museums are places of conservation, education, and about protecting something sacred. We need to assign those same values to our oceans.”

*Museo Subacuático de Arte, Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Mexico*

“As soon as we sink them, they belong to the sea.“

*The Rising Tide, River Thames, Vauxhall, London*

“The Rising Tide was located within sight of the Houses of Parliament. The politician on a petroleum horse was an obvious metaphor for how fossil fuel companies are embedded into our politician system. I think we really have to start holding people accountable for what they are doing. And that needs to be documented in stone rather than in a few words in a newspaper column that disappears. There are a lot of people whose actions need to be immortalised.”

*The Raft of Lampedusa, Museo Atlántico, Lanzarote, Spain, Atlantic Ocean*

*The Coral Greenhouse, John Brewer Reef, Australia, Pacific Ocean*

*The Silent Evolution, Museo Subacuático de Arte*, *Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Mexico*

“It is named a museum for a simple reason. Every day we dredge, pollute and overfish our oceans, while museums are places of preservation, of conservation, and of education. They are places where we keep objects that have great value to us. Our oceans are sacred.”

Check out www.underwatersculpture.com for a lot more amazing work!

Jason deCaires Taylor MRSS is an award winning sculptor, environmentalist and professional underwater photographer. For the past 16 years, Taylor has been creating underwater museums and sculpture parks beneath the waves, submerging over 1,100 living artworks throughout the world’s oceans and seas. Themes explored by these artistic installations include, among others, the climate emergency, environmental activism, and the regenerative attributes of nature. The sculptures create a habitat for marine life whilst illustrating humanity’s fragility and its relationship with the marine world. Taylor’s subjects mainly feature members of the local community, focussing on their connections with their own coastal environments.