A drop in the ocean
Thousands of corals, molluscs and algae find refuge in the underwater installations created by sculptor Jason decaires Taylor, who uses art to restore aquatic ecosystems
AFLEET of origami boats manned by sculpted schoolchildren sits at the bottom of the sea on a barren sandbank off the coast of Carriacou, north of Grenada, in the Caribbean. The 30 boats—which look like paper, but are actually made of stainless steel and eco-friendly cement —double up as artificial reefs to support marine biodiversity, their sails working as coral nurseries. They are the work of Kent sculptor Jason decaires Taylor (https://underwater sculpture.com), who has long campaigned for marine conservation through his work.
The pristine coastlines he saw when living in Malaysia and travelling across South-east Asia in his youth sparked his passion for the sea. On his return to the UK, he became a diving instructor at the same time as training as a sculptor, but it was in the Caribbean that he first thought of harnessing his art to save the oceans. ‘I was living in Grenada when it got hit by a particularly severe hurricane that devastated not only a lot of the buildings on land, but also a lot of the underwater reefs and ecosystems. I thought, how can we help rehabilitate these areas?’ His answer was the 75-piece Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park. Launched in 2006 and expanded last year with another 27 works, it has helped turn that stretch of Caribbean Sea—which had been completely wiped by the hurricane— into a marine conservation area. It also draws tourists, who can view the sculptures on glassbottom-boat trips or diving expeditions, away from more fragile places nearby.
Over the years, Mr Taylor has installed about 1,200 sculptures along coasts, in rivers or on the seabed everywhere from Australia to France and is soon to start a project in Japan. However, he also works closer to home: his Sirens of Sewage, unveiled in Whitstable, Kent, earlier this year, highlights the threat pollution poses to British waterways. His studio is 10 miles from Whitstable, an area that has been severely affected by sewage pollution, and when he met local clean-water campaigner SOS Whitstable, he thought an installation could support its efforts. ‘The sewage deposits happen at night, at full tide. You can’t really see the detriment they are having on marine life, so, for me, it’s quite useful to make sculptures that give something tangible, something emotive that people can relate to.’ Art, he believes, can ‘give voice’ to ecological issues, from pollution to climate change, and help people truly ‘see’ them. ‘I think we’re all very aware of the statistics and the scientific warnings, but humans are emotive beings and we respond more to emotions than we do to rationality.’
We went from a single mussel to the apex predator within just over a year
His Whitstable sculpture raises attention, but his underwater installations do more than that: ‘They allow corals and algae and sponges and tunicates and all this underwater biodiversity to flourish. They also provide habitats for certain types of species: crabs, crustaceans, juvenile fish—all sorts of different creatures.’ As they are colonised, the sculptures almost become living things in their own right. Their shapes inevitably change from what Mr Taylor has carefully crafted in his studio, but he’s not precious about that. ‘For me, that’s when they become alive, when their true meaning comes through. Nothing in our lives is static and that’s what I think is interesting about these works: they reflect that we’re in a constant state of flux. Sometimes, they change for the better, they look beautiful and they have these incredible colonisations; at other times, they look drab and uninteresting, but it’s that dynamic process that motivates me.’
The very nature of his installations also gives a message of hope for the future: ‘If you read too many news articles, they leave you with a sense of complete futility, but, actually, Nature has an amazing way of recovering.’ One of his recent projects, in Oslo, Norway, proves exactly how much of a difference a single installation can make to an ecosystem. The site, a fjord in the city centre, was heavily polluted, with very low visibility and a silty bottom. ‘I wasn’t expecting it to be prolific, but we put in our works and, instantly, they started to get all these different molluscs: mussels and clams.’ Their presence helped clean the sea around the installation and, soon, little banded shrimps arrived, as did tunicates and sponges that would inhale the water and filter it. Different species of fish then made an appearance. ‘All the juveniles would hang around, then bigger
predator fish came in. The pinnacle of it was, we started to get a fur seal that would eat the larger fish. We went from a single mussel to the apex predator within just over a year.’
As a professional underwater photographer, as well as a sculptor, Mr Taylor has often come close up to the marine life that lives in or around his projects, but, he laughs, his greatest challenges have all taken place on land—in his studio. ‘A lot of my sculptures are based on real people and they all get life cast.’ This requires them to strip to their underwear and get covered in plaster, Vaseline and dental moulding material. Sometimes, reveals Mr Taylor, ‘we’ve perhaps removed a little bit too much body hair when we pull [the plaster] off’. Ouch. More often, however, because the ‘models’ have to stand still and relax, ‘we’ve had a lot of funny experiences with people falling asleep inside the mould’.
His very own experience of deep relaxation took place elsewhere, however: off the Isla Mujeres, in Cancún, Mexico, in 2009. ‘I went to build these sculptures—there were more than 450 of them—and, once they were all installed, I did a night dive,’ he recalls. ‘There was a bright, full moon and it was a beautifully still night. I dived on my own, sat on the seabed and turned off all my torches. The moon illuminated the water and it was amazing— it felt like walking through an incredible forest 10 yards under the sea. In some cultures, they talk about having this escape from your body and that was how it felt. It was spiritual and different—and I think that’s where I really fell in love with the underwater world.’