The Underwater Museum: The Submerged Sculptures of Jason deCaires Taylor

By Jason deCaires Taylor, Carlo McCormick and Helen Scales

A guide to the undersea sculptures of the award-winning British artist whose works “are both enchanting and ecologically meaningful” (Discover).
 
A one-of-a-kind blend of art, nature, and conservation, The Underwater Museum re-creates an awe-inspiring dive into the dazzling under-ocean sculpture parks of artist Jason deCaires Taylor. Taylor casts his life-size statues from a special kind of cement that facilitates reef growth, and sinks them to the ocean floor. There, over time, the artworks attract corals, algae, and fish, and evolve into beautiful and surreal installations that are also living reefs.
 
This volume brings readers face to face with these wonders and explains the science behind their creation. Ocean enthusiasts, divers, art lovers, and anyone entranced by the natural world will be instantly engrossed by this pearl of a book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452130293

Book preview

Foreword copyright © 2014 by Jason deCaires Taylor.

Essay copyright © 2014 by Carlo McCormick.

Essay copyright © 2014 by Helen Scales.

Photography copyright © 2014 by Jason deCaires Taylor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced in any form without written permission from

the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4521-3029-3 (epub2, mobi)

ISBN 978-1-4521-3756-8 (epub3)

The Library of Congress has previously cataloged this title under ISBN: 978-1-4521-1887-1

The author is grateful for the sponsorship of SIGMA in supplying photographic lenses.

Design by Pamela Geismar

Typeset in Gotham and PMN Caecilia

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

by Jason deCaires Taylor

7

DEEP SEEING

Meaning and Magic in Jason deCaires Taylor’s Otherworld

by Carlo McCormick

11

FROM POLYP TO RAMPART

The Science of Reef Building and How Art Can Inspire a Sustainable Future

by Helen Scales

19

PLATES

30

PROCESS PHOTOGRAPHS

104

LIST OF ARTWORKS

126

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

128

FOREWORD

by Jason deCaires Taylor

Being underwater is a deeply personal, liberating, and otherworldly experience. Like many interactions with the natural world, submersion is both humbling and life affirming. In my work I aim to encourage insight into our human relationship with the unchartered space that occupies over two-thirds of our planet.

I have always been an explorer. When I was a child I lived in Malaysia with my parents and sister. We would often take to the seas on the weekends to explore the incredible reefs and islands that surrounded the east and west coasts of the peninsula. By the time I had reached secondary school, we headed back to the UK, where I substituted disused chalk pits, old paper factories, and a derelict empty railway line for coral reefs. I suppose like many teenagers I enjoyed the notion that I might find some secret place or fantasy world. In hindsight, I see that, besides the solitude and adventure I discovered in these places, I was always fascinated by how nature had reclaimed human environments. Weather and plant life were slowly eroding away our marks and encroaching on the structures. Later in my adolescence, I became a graffiti artist—spray-painting walls, tagging, and looking at public spaces as places to communicate through art. This in turn led me to art college, and I centered four years of study on art and the environment.

After finishing my sculpture degree I made a tentative plan to