By Jayne Clark, USA TODAY
CANCUN, Mexico — Strange and wonderful doings are afoot in the offshore waters here, where hundreds of life-size human statues are poised like ghostly apparitions 27 feet beneath the surface. They're the latest addition to a new underwater museum in the National Marine Park of Cancun that in November will host 400 sculptures in an installation called The Silent Evolution. They join several other tableaus — a man standing at a desk, a woman tending pots of coral, a taciturn gent with fire coral sprouting from his head — in the world's largest museum of its kind.
PHOTO GALLERY: An eerie museum under the sea
Call it art with a purpose. The cement sculptures constitute an artificial reef, providing surfaces for new coral growth and a habitat for fish and other sea creatures. It also diverts snorkelers and scuba divers, thereby reducing wear and tear on the natural reefs nearby. Local tour operators ferry visitors to the site for diving, snorkeling or glass-bottom-boat rides.
The man behind the concept is Jason de Caires Taylor, a British sculptor who created a similar, albeit smaller, underwater museum/artificial reef off Grenada in 2006. Officials from Cancun's marine park contacted him about doing a project for them. It's an exhibition that will never get boring, because it's destined to be ever-changing.
"I have a whole team of underwater helpers that come along and do all the finishing for me," Taylor says. "The coral applies the paint. The fish supply the atmosphere. The water provides the mood. People ask me when it's going to be finished. This is just the beginning."
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