Where Art Meets the Elements

Environmental artist Jason deCaires Taylor has brought together sky and sea to create a striking semi-submerged gallery in the Maldives.

The 200-ton building is six metres high, with its front facade submerged up to a median tide of three metres. The design of the walls references local natural coral structures and is porous. This allows the tides, currents and marine life to pass through, and creates a safe space for nature to colonise and seek refuge. All of the materials are pH neutral and don’t cause any damage to the natural marine environment

Jason deCaires Taylor – known internationally for his innovative (and thought-provoking) underwater sculptures – has revealed his latest project, the world’s first intertidal gallery. Known as The Sculpture Coralarium, the semi-submerged installation is located in the centre of the largest developed coral lagoon in the Maldives, just off the island resort of Fairmont Sirru Fen Fushi.

THE SPACE

The gallery, which displays around 30 artworks, is a cube-shaped structure made from marine stainless steel and pH-neutral cement. Its front facade is submerged up to a median tide of three metres and the entire complex construction is porous, allowing marine life and tides to easily pass through. ‘We wanted a building that blended into the environment, that breathed within the environment,’ says Taylor. ‘[In planning the design], it was very important that marine life could access it, could enter, could leave, that currents would be dissipated by the structure, that it was safe within volatile weather conditions. And the idea of using a very reflective stainless steel was that it would mimic the colours that surround it, so it would take on the hues of the ocean, of the sky, of the background, and be like a kind of mirage on the horizon.’

The gallery exists in three different elements – there is a set of sculptures that interact with the sky and the atmosphere, artworks that exist in the tidal area so that they live both above and below the water, and some submerged pieces. The internal gallery houses 14 sculptures on plinths at various heights – some are completely submerged, others are high above the waterline, while the majority are midwater, interacting with both the marine and terrestrial worlds. The roof is perforated in a coral pattern to allow beams of light to reach the individual artworks, and a series of submerged lights illuminate the space at night. On the roof of the building are a series of black silhouetted sculptures, and the entrance of the building is situated about the water and leads onto a dry elevated viewing platform.

The gallery exists in three different elements – there is a set of sculptures that interact with the sky and the atmosphere, artworks that exist in the tidal area so that they live both above and below the water, and some submerged pieces

A series of black silhouetted sculptures are displayed on the roof of the gallery. The entrance of the building is situated above the water and leads onto a dry elevated platform

The sculptures inside the gallery are hybrid forms: part-human, part-plant, part-coral. The forms are based on species endemic to the island and its surrounding reefs, including banyan trees, screw pines, strangler ivy, and mushroom and staghorn corals. Many of the artworks also feature root systems, symbolic of human dependence on the natural environment and a connection to place

The internal gallery space exhibits sculptures at various heights, some completely submerged, others high above the waterline, with the majority mid-water, interacting with both the marine and terrestrial world, depending on the tidal level. The installation also includes a series of submerged sculptures of children looking up towards the surface of the sea, as if posing questions about the threat of climate change and rising sea levels

THE CONCEPT

Nine months in the making, the project involved a large number of people, from marine engineers and steel fabricators to mould-makers and divers. The materials were brought to the island and don’t damage the marine environment in any way. Most of the sculptures are made from casts of real people, both from the local Maldivian community and other parts of the world, representing a broad crosssection of humanity.

The key idea behind the gallery, says Taylor, was about taking all of the different elements of our planet and showing that everything is connected. ‘We’re all interdependent and that’s a fundamental aspect of the installation,’ he says. The project also includes some coral propagation – coral cuttings have been implanted in the gallery and around the sculptures. As such, the installation is an ever-evolving space, shaped by nature – the level of the water shifts with the tides and sea creatures come and go. Taylor describes his latest project as a kind of inverse zoo: ‘In cities we go into a space and look at caged animals, whereas here we’re in the cage and the marine life can come and go and look at us. So, it’s almost like a reversal of how we interact with wildlife.’ �