Sculptor, diver and photographer Jason deCaires Taylor has fashioned spectacular underwater installations all over the world to be enjoyed by scuba divers and snorkellers, but his latest work Alluvia has been submerged in very shallow water closer to home – in Kent.
Made from recycled glass, LEDs and marine stainless steel, the work incorporates environmental monitoring sensors and is illuminated from within at night. It was installed in the River Stour near Canterbury’s Westgate Bridge on 12 September.
Inspired by Millais’ famous pre-Raphaelite painting Ophelia, that depiction of the character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet was itself thought to have been inspired by a 16th-century Stour drowning.
The sculpture replaces several old Alluvia statues from the Stour. Taylor had agreed to help the Canterbury Commemoration Society to repair them, but after finding that dredging had smashed them beyond repair he had agreed to replace them with something more contemporary of his own.
Alluvia refers to the alluvial deposits of sand left by the Stour’s fluctuating water level. “As the river swells and recedes with the seasons, and as the light shifts, the sculpture transforms, first through the play of shadows and light, then gradually as reeds and algae form on and around it,” says Taylor.
Over the years Taylor has created other works in the UK both above and below the surface, including The Rising Tide, Plasticide, Inverted Solitude and the Chelsea Barracks Sculpture Trail
A World Adrift
A more typical Taylor installation for divers and snorkellers is set for sinking off Carriacou, the small island that forms part of Grenada. The work was completed but its positioning under water was postponed in July because of the priority-shifting damage caused in that part of the Caribbean by the devastating category five Hurricane Beryl.
As it happened, the work A World Adrift had been intended to highlight the islands’ vulnerability to the effects of climate change. It consists of a monumental flotilla of 30 two-ton origami-shaped boats sailed by local children who had acted as Taylor’s models – and all of whom had been left homeless by the catastrophic storm.
The installation is now planned to go ahead soon, in the hope that it will encourage visitors, especially divers, to return to Carriacou, helping to drive its economic recovery and create a new sanctuary for marine life.
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I love his work. It will be good to install a work in Carriacou to help recover tourism after Beryl