Mar

The Underwater Museums of Jason deCaires Taylor

by Eva Boynton on March 14, 2016

A woman snorkeling in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor that shows innovations of artist and ocean. (image © Jason deClaire Taylor).

Enter a world of blue, where sculptures function as art and habitat.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Experience the Creative Partnership of Artist and Ocean

Under the blue line of the ocean’s surface is a world alive with movement. The environment is itself in constant motion; sunlight ripples across the scales of fish, while coral reef plants sway with the push and pull of the currents.

Often this world is forgotten by us land-dwellers, but not by sculptor and naturalist Jason deCaires Taylor. He has created, in the world’s first underwater museums, the perfect exhibit space for his larger-than-life sculptures.

His are museums that need no curator. The ocean does that job, constantly updating the exhibit and transforming the sculptures into a functioning artificial reef. Perhaps it is this partnership between artist and ocean that is the true innovation.

Sculpture in the underwater museum by Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaire's Taylor)

The ocean is an extraordinary exhibition space, altering art with life.
© Jason deClaires Taylor

An Eye for New Terrain, A Voice for the Ocean’s Future

What makes a great art exhibit? Emotive lighting, hints of wonder, astonishment, awe, or a powerful backdrop? Taylor’s chosen space has them all.

Taylor constructed underwater museums first near Grenada and then off the coast of Cancún, Mexico, and the Bahamas. Later he moved to more underwater locations around the world from Indonesia to the Oslo Fjord in Norway. Taylor explains why he loves to work in the aquatic gallery space:

Being underwater is a deeply personal, liberating, and otherworld experience. Like many interactions with the natural world, submersion is both humbling and life-affirming.

A sculpture of a woman with coral growing from her sides in the underwater museum by Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations of artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

Reclamation, accentuated by dramatic lighting, purple Gorgonian sea fans, and a blue backdrop, reclaims the ocean as a precious place.
© Jason deClaires Taylor

Through his passion for diving, Taylor acquired an understanding of the sea’s territory, seeing it as a place to be revered and respected. Travelers who visit his museums sense, through his art installations, this feeling of deep respect for the oceans.

The sculptures, themselves, give voice to messages about the environment.

Sculptures of young people holding hands in a circle in the underwater museum off the coast of Grenada, an innovation by Jason deCaires Taylor. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

Vicissitudes, off the coast of Grenada, symbolizes the cycle of life and how we
are all affected by the circumstance of our surroundings.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Sculptures of bankers with their heads in the sand in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

The Bankers, submerged near Cancún, communicates denial and resistance to environmental
crises caused by over-fishing, dredging, and careless tourism.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Taylor’s underwater museums, however, are more than a message. They show that humans can, in turn, have a positive impact on nature.

Art that Takes Action

Although coral reefs inhabit only 1% of the ocean’s vastness, a quarter to a third of all marine species call them home. Coral reefs are fleeting and fragile, too. Coral and sea sponges can be swept away by a hurricane or a snorkeler’s careless hand. They are often over-visited and over-fished.

With this in mind, Taylor constructs his sculptures in a way that preserves and extends coral reefs.

A sculpture of a girl in a garden of coral in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater museum, showing innovations by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

Taylor’s “Oh, I See” Moment: Gardening is not just for greenhouses.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

He uses durable ph-neutral cement to form his artwork, texturing surfaces so that reef plants can attach. This encourages the expansion of the natural landscape, and results in living spaces for crustaceans and fish.

His underwater museums, then, serve as artificial reefs that relieve natural reefs from excessive tourism in destinations like Cancún, Mexico. When snorkelers and divers spend time visiting Taylor’s sculptures, the natural reefs have space and time to generate life.

Artist Jason deCaires Taylor scuba dives and plants coral in his sculptures in the underwater museum, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

Taylor begins the rehabilitation process by planting coral in Man on Fire
near Isla Mujeres, Mexico.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

What started as “a small community” of sculptures off the coast of Cancún, grew into “an entire movement of people in defense of the sea.”

A school of fish swims around sculptures that have become an artificial reef in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater museum, demonstrating the innovation of an underwater museum. (Image © Jason deClaires Taylor).

500 sculptures offer surfaces, nooks and crannies for marine life to develop.
Art and preservation go hand in hand in Silent Evolution.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Through his sculptures, Taylor has provided an amazing gallery of art and a place for ocean life to flourish. Ocean and artist share the same goals: encouragement of life. They have a symbiotic relationship, benefiting one another with their artistic innovations.

Silent Innovation by the Sea

Without as much as a whisper, the ocean begins to change the sculptures. As nature flourishes, the artwork undergoes mind-blowing transformations. Taylor explains witnessing the change:

As soon as we submerge the sculptures, they are not ours anymore. . . . The sculptures—they belong to the sea. As new reefs form, a new world literally starts to evolve.

Two sculptures covered in plant growth in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovation by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

The ocean breathes life, color, and texture into Taylor’s work.
They become living sculptures.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

For Taylor, the innovation in his work really begins when nature takes over. The ocean paints with the most spectacular red algae, curving coral, and sponges.

A sculpture covered in sea sponges, coral, algae and a sea star in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

What was once a cement casting of a local fisherman is now a
bizarre and beautiful sea creature.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

The transformation from studio to sea floor goes something like this:

A model's face, the sculpture of the model, and the sculpture transformed by the ocean after its installation in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovation by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

A recognizable figure becomes a sculpture and is then abstracted by sponges and algae.
Nature leaves her mark near Isla Mujeres, Cancún, Mexico.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Jason deCaires Taylor’s work is a collaboration with the environment. Taylor lays down the foundation, and Nature forms positive mutations, achieving extraordinary appearances that only the ocean could conjure upon these man-made surfaces.

Oh, I See for Myself

I visited one of Taylor’s underwater museums off the coast of Cancún. As I swam from one sculpture to another, weaving around real reefs to visit the artificial ones, I saw first-hand how the sculptures change with time, how they become more a part of the sea with each passing day.

A view of the sculpture "Reclamation" in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater, showing the innovations of both artist and ocean. (image © Eva Boynton).

Floating above Reclamation
© Eva Boynton

I experienced the quiet underneath the ocean’s surface—a forgotten world that supports extraordinary life all the while. I became a part of Taylor’s artwork and mission, a traveler who entered his underwater museum out of curiosity and who left with a sense of responsibility to encourage life in Earth’s vast blue oceans.

—§—

Thank you, Jason, for your wonderful work and for sharing your photography. To see more images of Taylor’s work, check out his underwater sculptures. Dive deeper into Taylor’s underwater museum with this five minute video.

Comment on this post below.

Eva Boynton 6 Comments

Mexico/Nature Discovery/The World's Art & Design

Feb

The Art of Urban and Rural Exploration

by Eva Boynton on February 2, 2016

A winding staircase in an abandoned building shows how the art of urban exploration makes you see things differently (image © Christian Richter).

The spiraling perspective of an abandoned staircase begs the question:
Who walked up these stairs?
© Christian Richter

See Things Differently, See Beauty in Decay

While perusing the library of my travel photos, I found a surprising result. Faces and landscapes were few and far between. Crumbling brick, rusted door knobs, cracked walls, paint discoloration, and patterns of flaking exteriors took center stage. Why?

Because I see things differently. Not only do deserted buildings and decaying walls provide powerful settings for photography, but they are themselves, a form of art.

I see beauty in decay, stories and legend in the abandoned, rejuvenation in the old, and endurance for the decrepit. I was an urban explorer before I knew urban exploration, or urbex, existed. I love to document the dilapidated and decrepit. Take a look. See its beauty. See things differently.

Exterior wall with stained blue patterns, showing how the art of urban exploration makes you see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton)

With dark and emphatic strokes, Nature paints eyebrows around window eyes.
© Eva Boynton

Art Lessons

Found among the debris of disregarded buildings is the great professor of color theory. The mix of colors, patterns, and shapes that form from wear and tear provide art lessons of the natural kind. They inform the palette of painters and delight the eye of those who appreciate art.

A wall's paint discolored by urban decay, showing how urban exploration can make you see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton)

The dynamic palette of urban decay
© Eva Boynton

Urban exploration develops an eye for the aesthetics of decay. Through the camera lens, photographers learn to frame exquisite landscapes of colors, textures, and patterns. They snap their pictures and document the eroding walls and deteriorating doors.

An eroding wall exposing brick and blues, pinks and yellows, demonstrating how urban exploration makes you see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton).

Flaking paint and exposed brick create the color tones in this wallscape.
© Eva Boynton

For the photographer, the lessons in art go beyond color studies to recognizing a remarkable backdrop. They teach skills in perspective—when to go in close on the details and when to pull back to think about the entire composition.

A portrait of a woman standing in front of a decaying wall, showing how the art of urban exploration makes you see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton).

An effective juxtaposition—decaying walls and a young woman looking forward to a long life
© Eva Boynton

Nature’s Paintbrush

Nature paints with living colors of moss, ivy, and oxidation. Environmental factors take effect over time, exposing the raw layers of what lies beneath. Humidity causes discoloration and stained patterns, while rain flakes the walls. These are the unlikely mediums of nature’s paintbrush that create the aesthetics relished by urban and rural explorers alike.

Green moss growing on a Mayan wall in Quintana Roo, Mexico, is an artwork of decay that makes you see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton)

Coming in close on a wall in the Mayan jungle of Quintana Roo, Mexico,
reveals a mix of moss and paint.
© Eva Boynton

Nature alters architecture, interacting with what humans have built. She animates a dormant surface, producing wonderfully erratic and random displays of color, texture and pattern. These spectacular shows of decay are of the moment and are the prize of urban and rural explorers.

A wall and door with dynamic colors, showing the effect of decay gives an opportunity to see things differently. (image © Eva Boynton).

Cracks and crackles of ocean indigo and rusty reds on this Mexican wall
frame a new door that is itself already starting to decay.
© Eva Boynton

Once Nature starts to take over, every moment counts. The process is a constant evolution, one in which change comes from both decomposition and the sprouting of new plant life. Standing in front of a scene of urban decay is like watching a live performance—a year, a month, or even a day later, the mutations create a new look.

A deserted hotel room in Europe with plants growing over the bed, illustrating how photographers engaged in urban exploration make you see things differently. (image © Christian Richter).

A deserted hotel room in Europe provides a bed for new growth.
© Christian Richter

Urban and rural exploration teaches how to see beauty in the most unlikely of subjects. Decaying walls and buildings and beds, however, are more than an artistic opportunity or nature’s playground. They also tell powerful stories.

Stories in the Abandoned

Explorers of all types need imagination and courage for their journeys. Urban exploration is no different. Although rotten floors and unstable ceilings can be a challenging setting, abandoned buildings produce unique photographic stories.

Students once studied in these very desks. Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre safeguard the memory with a camera.

A deserted classroom in Europe, captured by a photographer doing urban exploration, makes you see things differently. (image © Christian Richter).

What do you think happened on the day this classroom was abandoned?
© Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Photos of Detroit’s deserted theaters and dust-caked hotels preserve a story of time passing—a story of people coming and going, of an empire rising and fading away.

An abandoned room of a hotel apartment in Detroit, captured by a photographer engaged in urban exploration who wants you to see things differently. (image © Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre)

The Lee Plaza hotel, completed in Detroit in 1929, was a
production of the “construction frenzy” era.
©Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Like the rings of a tree, you can count the layers of dust or paint to imagine the history that the walls have witnessed over the years. Perhaps a family celebrated their success here by checking into this 1920s luxury suite. Maybe they invited a pianist to serenade them as they ate a decadent meal. Were they part of the social segregation that caused the abandonment of many buildings in the city?

Abandoned buildings are a mausoleum of sorts, where stories of the past are buried. When photographs from urban explorers preserve these relics, they turn the rotting past into a monument of the present.

An abandoned library in Europe, captured by a photographer engaged in urban exploration who wants you to see things differently. (image © Christian Richter)

What stories can this European library tell?
Who was the last person to sit in the green chair?
© Christian Richter

The ruins become the roots of a present-day place, the survivors, heritage sites in their own right. They evoke eerie, nostalgic emotions, and they house awe-inspiring stories of heroic destruction.

Oh, I See Decay Differently

Rust may be a sign of disuse and chipped paint a sign of failure to “keep up appearances,” but the art of decay revealed in my urban and rural exploration makes me see things differently. With fresh and creative eyes, I see beauty and inspiration in the old, lost, disregarded, and abandoned. What do you see?

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Thank you Christian Richter and Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre for sharing your beautiful photography.

Eva Boynton 6 Comments

The World's Art & Design/Worldwide Sites

Jan

The Corn Tortilla: A Mexican Superhero

by Eva Boynton on January 11, 2016

A mural of a maize plant used to make corn tortillas illustrates the connection of corn to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Eva Boynton)

A kernel of corn at the heart of a Mexican corn plant; the corn plant at the heart
of the corn tortilla; the corn tortilla at the heart of Mexican culture
photo © Eva Boynton

The Delicious Taste of Cultural Heritage

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a corn tortilla addict. At first I was skeptical.

My travel companions from Mexico would let loose disappointed sighs when a beautiful meal lacked their favorite flying saucers made of corn. I would think to myself, “What’s the hubbub over tortillas?” After my first weeks in Mexico, though, I was hooked.

Corn tortillas are the superheroes of a Mexican meal. They can magically expand a few morsels of food into a full meal. They add flavor and richness to daily life. And the process of making delicious tortillas connects people to Mexico’s cultural heritage and traditions as well as to each other.

Born in a Tortillería

The life of this Mexican superhero begins in the tortillería (tortilla shop). Found in every neighborhood, the bustling shops spice up the streets with sound, smell, and flavor. They are a place of congregation, a daily interaction between neighbors.

Tortilla shop in a small Mexican town, showing how the daily practice of making corn tortillas connects to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Eva Boynton)

If the tortillas are made by machine, the crunch and whine of turning gears can be heard from several blocks away. If they are made by hand, the rhythmic pat-patting of hands flattening the dough fills the street. Each method douses the air with a corn perfume.

City or small town, life in Mexico is life with tortillas.

A Family Affair

One such tortillería is Tortijocha in Huatulco, a city in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. José Alfredo Lavariega Canseco (or Jocha, for short) began the business in his home, selling tortillas handmade by his wife.

Jocha and his family standing in front of their tortilla shop, illustrating the connection between corn tortillas and Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Eva Boynton).

The more they sold, the more Jocha recognized the possibility of a larger enterprise. The front of his house transformed into Tortijocha.

Jocha’s tortilla machine carries the name of
Fausto Celorio, who mechanized the
tortilla-making process in the late 1940’s.
© Eva Boynton

But selling handmade tortillas is not always profitable since they cannot be mass produced.

Jocha explains, “They are very tasty, handmade tortillas, but I was interested in doing business.”

Consequently, someone else was introduced into the family business. Her name—Máquina Celorio.

The early days of using the machine were pure experimentation. Jocha’s first tortillas were a tad crispy, but that did not spoil the family’s excitement. They celebrated around the dinner table with a stack of charred, machine-made tortillas and a home-cooked meal.

A man working the tortilla machine, showing the daily practice of making corn tortillas that connects to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Man and machine at work.
The dough—a mixture of ground-up corn kernels soaked in limewater—is pushed
through a funnel, sliced into tortillas, and moved along three griddles to cook.
© Eva Boynton

Once again, the tortilla showed its superpowers, bringing a family together in a common enterprise. Tortijocha quickly began producing and selling stacks of identically cut and cooked tortillas that brought other families together in communal feasts.

The Cultural Connection

“Is there a difference between your tortillas and those from other tortilla shops?” I asked.

Jocha replied, “Our tortillas are the best because we make tortillas with real corn. . . .We try to have flavor and texture in the tortillas. We want to have quality.”

The real corn Jocha is talking about comes from using maíz (corn) purchased from local farmers in Huatulco. Tortijocha soaks and grinds the corn instead of buying a pre-made mixture from a store.

Spread out on the floor, a pile of corn is ready for use in making corn tortillas, a food connected to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Gabriela Díaz Cortez)

Jocha claims that the taste of “100% pure maíz” (found on their store sign) creates stronger connections among land, plant, farmer, and city customer. The connections date back to the ancestors of Mexico’s modern culture who grew some 59 types of indigenous corn.

Mountains with corn plant growing in the foreground, showing an ingredient for making corn tortillas, a food still connected today to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Gabriela Díaz Cortez)

Corn tortillas are ingrained in Mexico’s identity for reasons beyond the ingredients—the patting together of dough is part of Mexico’s cultural heritage that has been passed down across centuries.

A Mexican woman making corn tortillas by hand, showing an ongoing connection to Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions (Image © Frank Kolvachek)

Why does this traditional way of making tortillas continue? Perhaps because it is tradition, or perhaps it is because handmade tortillas are more delicious, crafted and cooked on a different kind of grill—crafted by a person rather than sliced and delivered by a machine.

Whether made by machine or by hand, however, the corn tortilla maintains its superhero status, connecting a modern-day culture to its roots.

Oh, I See the Superpowers of the Corn Tortilla

Maintaining traditions across centuries. Bringing people together. As if these superpowers weren’t sufficient, I discover the daily power of tortillas. They go with almost every meal in Mexico, serving as the main ingredient, utensil, or sponge to soak up the rich flavors of a dish.

Dinner plate filled with tasty tortillas topped with queso fresco and avocado, illustrating the ongoing connection between tortillas eaten today and Mexico's cultural heritage and traditions. (Image © Eva Boynton)

I imagine myself traveling with a utility belt full of tortillas for every occasion. Need silverware? Pull out a tortilla. Missing a napkin, tablecloth, meal extender, flavor enhancer, or community builder? Look to the little tortilla.

As Jocha told me, “The corn tortilla is the most important thing on the table.” That’s because it’s a Mexican superhero, full of good taste and cultural heritage, connected to Mexico’s rich history and ancestral cuisine.

Thank you, Jocha, for the interview and the delicious tortillas.

Comment on this post below.

Eva Boynton 1 Comment

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