Underwater sculpture museum on St Margaret's Island

The latest underwater sculpture museum has opened on the Côte d’Azur, created by British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, who is well known in the diving world.

The exposition in underwater sculpture museum Museum consists of six portraits. Each sculpture measures over two metres high and weighs ten tonnes. The statues were sunk on 28 January near St Margaret’s Island and rested on the seabed at a depth of around 2-3 metres, on sandy islands between underwater meadows of Poseidon grasses.

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Creation of museum commissioned by David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes. The whole project was financed by municipal funds. The project took four years to complete. Fortunately, everything went according to plan and the French became the owners of the first such underwater museum located in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

All the works have been made from pH-neutral materials to help attract as many representatives of marine flora and fauna as possible to populate the underwater artworks.

Local character

Jason deCaires Taylor based each of his sculptures on portraits of members of the local community. People of different ages and occupations. This is why they include the face of Maurice, an 80-year-old local fisherman, and a nine-year-old primary school student named Anouk.

The author himself stated that his the works represent double face of the ocean. On the one hand it is characterised by enormous strength and extraordinary resilience, and on the other it is delicate, fragile and extremely sensitive to human interference.

Legend

Jason deCaires Taylor also referred to the history of the region. In a citadel on St Margaret’s Island, the unidentified ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ was imprisoned in the 17th century, before he was eventually imprisoned in the legendary Bastille. Undoubtedly, his story has fired people’s imagination over the years and has been surrounded by many mysteries. That is why each of the sculptures depicts a face consisting of two parts, the outer part of which resembles precisely the mask.

Photo by Jason deCaires Taylor/underwatersculpture.com