Underwater Museums: Art Installation, Environmental Project, Indictment Of Diving Tourism Or Something More Taxing?

Jason deCaires Taylor, a former theatre set designer, paparazzi photographer and diving instructor, has been very busy in the last few years sinking statues in various oceans and writing a book about it. Jason's underwater installations can be seen in Grenada, Cancun in Mexico, Nassau in the Bahamas and now a new installation has opened in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote and a lot of people have become very excited about this. Blogs, the diving press and the mainstream media have all dedicated a great many column inches to Jason's work. Artistic types with slicked grey hair, thin glasses and effeminate mannerisms have waxed lyrical about how Jason's works express everything from slavery and the plight of refugees to mankind's apathy towards global warming. Ecology minded types, on the other hand, have upped the lyrical waxing by pointing out that Jason's installations use marine friendly concrete and promote coral growth – in short Jason is creating artificial coral reefs and increasing marine biomass. Others, those with a more financially tuned mind, have seen the opportunity to boost tourism to their part of the world with the unique selling point of an underwater art exhibition. The new installation in Lanzarote is being hailed as Europe's first underwater Museum, which is a bit odd because Turkey apparently opened up Europe's first underwater museum last year. 

Anyway that argument aside the whole idea of underwater museums sounds very laudable doesn't it? After all, what's there to dislike? Jason deCaires Taylor gets to show off his works and presumably gets some cash or at least increases his book sales. Environmentalists get to showcase both the plight of coral reefs and the possible solution, locals get to benefit from another tourist attraction and divers get to fin about in a new and interesting environment. Everyone is a winner then. Well, we're not sure on that. In fact we're a little worried about the whole thing. 

 

So let's drill down a bit. Firstly we're not interested in whether Jason's works have artistic merit. Art, like beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, if you think it's art then it is. Nor are we remotely bothered about Jason using his works to highlight world issues. Although we would point out that Jason would have to have an ego the size of Mount Everest if he thought that sinking a concrete raft full of concrete statutes, in 12 metres of sea water, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean would bring the plight of refugees to the attention of the masses more than say; the entire worlds media that's been collectively filming it, writing about it and photographing it on a daily basis. Jason is British by the way, so he can't possibly have that big an ego could he? 

What we are a little unsure about is this: the original reason for the creation of these museums was not really to create a new coral reef. Sink a ship, a car or even a pile of concrete blocks and eventually they will be colonised by marine life. No the real reason for these creations is to distract divers away from the natural coral reefs that were being destroyed. 

 

Take Cancun for instance, the divers and snorkellers visiting the reef near Isla Mujere were having an unfortunate impact on the ecosystem. Coral was being damaged, leaching sunscreen was apparently poisoning the wildlife (and we'll be dealing with that in another post) and the sheer volume of bubble blowers visiting the reef was stressing the whole environment. Divers and snorkellers, often the most ecologically aware of tourists, were quite literally wrecking the place by their presence. Something had to be done to give the natural reefs some relief. So locals, conservationists and some arty folk got together and created an artificial site by dropping some concrete balls into the water in the hope that divers would want to see these rather than the natural reef. It didn't work. A concrete ball is after all a concrete ball until it is colonised and local dive operators and visiting divers were not impressed. As Robert Diaz, President of the Cancun Nautical Association put it: ““We have to bring tourists here. There was nothing to see. There were no fish. Just big balls that are empty—just horrible.”

The Director of the Isla Mujeres National Park in Cancun, Jaime Gonzalez became frustrated and considered closing the reef all together but this wasn't feasible. The answer came when Gonzalez discovered some art installations in Grenada. What if you could have something that wasn't an underwater eyesore before it became colonised by algae and coral – how about some statues. Enter Jason deCaires Taylor and the Cancun underwater museum was born. In fact so successful was the project that some dive operators complained that marine colonisation of the ghostly statues was ruining the show. This lead to Gonzalez cleaning the algae off half the statues by hand using steel wool and leaving the other half to continue being colonised. On Grenada, where Jason's statues were installed for the same reason as in Cancun, tourism has boomed with roughly half of all divers having been diverted away from the natural reef. Early indications seem to show that the same is happening in Cancun. Other artists are now getting involved and there are talks of having ten-thousand statues on the site in Cancun within the next ten years. 

 

Worrying don't you think? No? Okay let's explain. Firstly, let's ignore the fact that some environmental purists are appalled and argue that dumping statues, cars or concrete blocks into the sea is exactly that, dumping. With all the potential issues of changing the diversity of marine life and behaviour.

We'll also ignore the fact that some scientists dispute that divers and snorkellers are the reason the reefs are being damaged. Instead they cite pollution from the resorts and rising sea temperatures as the real culprits. The resorts are now booming so pollution levels are likely to get worse not better. 

But as we said, we'll ignore all that. The problem we have is that these underwater museums are not cheap. In Cancun, it cost $12000 to create and install each statue and that cost needs to be recouped. Which means you are going to be charged to visit them. And how long will it be before someone hits on the idea of charging for visiting the natural reefs? And we're not talking about the tour operator costs of taking a boat out to see them. We're talking about an extra charge. A tax. And how long will it be before someone gets the bright idea that viewing the underwater world as a whole, not just the reefs and sunken statues is a chargeable activity? In which case Snorkellers and divers entering the water from the beach, rather than taking an operators boat, are likely to be seen as tax dodgers and thus someone will want to bring in a charge for just going in the water! And don't think we are being absurd here. When environmentalism, economics and Art come to together, rationality goes out the window or the porthole for that matter. 

After all what diver would rather view a set of concrete statues rather than a natural reef? What snorkeller would rather look down on a series of fuzzy grey heads than on a vibrant natural landscape? And what kind of tourist is so oblivious to world crises that they can only get their consciences pricked by viewing a sunken depiction of refugees from a glass bottom boat? In fact when we think about it, underwater museums are not worrying, they are depressing. Have we really got to the stage when divers, snorkellers and freedivers would rather visit a man-made underwater structure in Cancun that looks exactly the same as the man-made installation in Grenada or the Bahamas or even Lanzarote than the amazingly diverse, stunningly beautiful and for the moment, absolutely free structures of the natural underwater world? Because if we have, that really would be absurd. 

 

By the way, according to Jason's own website, freediving on the Cancun installations is not allowed without a life jacket! Now we're not sure how you can freedive with a flotation device around your neck but we'll leave you, the reader, to work out the reason behind that little rule. We have already organised a trip to Lanzarote later this year, so we'll probably be re-visiting the idea of underwater museums then.

More reading

Jason deCaires Taylor's website

Scientific American website

BBC News website

New York Times website

Huffington Post website

Smithsonian Magazine

PBS website

Last Word On Nothing blog