Jason Taylor Underwater Sculpture Park. Biography

Amazing underwater world of sculptures located off the coast Grenada Islands at a depth of 2-8 m water Atlantic Ocean. The author of the art project is a talented sculptor specializing in ceramics, and part-time scuba diving instructor, American Jason Taylor (Jason de Caires Taylor).

The idea of ​​such an unusual art project, according to the author of the work, is to provide society with the opportunity to consider objects in close relationship with the environment, creating a unique space that combines demonstration of natural processes(over time, the sculptures become overgrown with shells, algae, and sea life settles in the cavities) with modern art.

body of water quite significantly distorts sculptures(objects seem 25% larger and closer), plus add to this the play of light, glare... All this undoubtedly adds a certain something to the underwater world of Taylor’s sculptures mystery And mystery http://malavoi3.martinique.univ-ag.fr/tramil/fototeca/miniatures/t2/kamagra-prix.html .

Enough for the sculptures easy to reach when scuba diving, since unusual creations of human hands are placed in shallow water. Also consider underwater world of sculptures You can go on a boat trip in a specialized yacht with a glass bottom.

The models for the underwater sculptures were simple local residents of Grenada, the author of the works initially created plaster casts of body parts, and then connected parts of sculptures already cast from concrete into a single composition using a steel cable. This is how the composition came to be called VicissitudesThe vicissitudes of fate"), where children of different nationalities gathered in a circle hold hands; sculpture of a lonely man at a desk with a typewriter, nicknamed " Lost Correspondent", And cyclist, rushing into the unknown.

Have you ever wanted to take a walk around luxury park, where whole stories are hovering around, told by stone sculptures: someone writes messages, someone relaxes in the garden, some ride bicycles, others lead mysterious round dances...

Walk among the surroundings of another world, where everyone lives their own life and shows their own story...

Interesting, isn't it? Well, what if you were told that this marvelous sculpture park has found its place in the depths of the water, and you can only see its stone inhabitants by traveling to the sea world?


The first underwater project on the planet that unfolded in Grenada is a response from inspiration and the fruit of the labors of Jason de Caires Taylor, who gained worldwide recognition back in 2006, when the world became acquainted with his unique works.


Underwater stone sculptures Taylor's works are intended to illustrate, on the one hand, ecological processes in the marine environment, and on the other, to reflect the relationship between the environment and the world of art. His creations undoubtedly convey a message to people that it is important to understand nature and the need to preserve its delicate world.


All of Jason Taylor's creations were placed in shallow water, which makes it easy to access the underwater museum with a snorkel, scuba gear, and even a trip on a glass-bottomed ship. Viewers are invited to discover the beauty of the underwater world and appreciate the evolution of the reef itself.


By the way, the process of working with underwater sculptures is very different from their traditional creation. For example, under water, stone statues are visually visible by 25 percent more; in addition, color distortion occurs, because water refracts streams of sunlight.

The ability to make plaster casts of objects and people has given the world thousands of magnificent sculptures and sculptural compositions, characterized by incredible realism and ideal proportions. It was this technique that formed the basis of perhaps the most original and striking art idea in the whole world, which came to the mind of the young American sculptor Jason Taylor. Amazing underwater city, which is built from plaster casts of real people, objects and architectural details, is a masterpiece of modern world art.

Jason de Cayre Taylor's underwater sculptures create a unique and completely anomalous seascape. By emphasizing natural ecological processes, human interventions in natural processes, Taylor's sculptures demonstrate the complex relationship that exists between art and the environment. His works are actually artificial reefs that attract marine life. The author's main idea was the revival and maintenance of the development of coral reefs. By periodically diving underwater in the Taylor Park, the viewer can appreciate how quickly the seabed is changing.

Brief biography of the sculptor

Jason de Cairo Taylor is a multifaceted and interesting person. Growing up in both Europe and Asia with an English father and a Haitian mother, the boy had a passion for exploration and discovery from an early age. Much of his childhood was spent exploring the coral reefs of Malaysia, where he developed a deep love of the sea and a fascination with wildlife. This later led to him working for several years as a scuba diving instructor in various units globe, with a keen interest in natural conservation, underwater naturalism and photography.

His connection with the sea remains constant throughout the sculptor's life. Despite the fact that other areas of his activity were not related to the ocean. As a teenager, he worked as a graffiti artist, trying to bring street art to the attention of others.

He graduated from the London Institute of Art in 1998, studying sculpture and ceramics. Later, the future famous sculptor gained experience working at Canterbury Cathedral, where he learned stone carving techniques and techniques for working with plaster. With this experience, he acquired the skills he needed to carry out the ambitious underwater projects that made him famous. Later, by making plaster casts of people and using cement mortar instead of stone, Jason Taylor began creating individual sculptural compositions on the bottom Caribbean Sea. These ambitious works have a practical, functional aspect, promoting interaction between people and fragile underwater habitats of flora and fauna.


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Today, Jason de Cairo Taylor has received worldwide recognition for his unique work. More than 1,000 publications have been published about him around the world, including National Geographic, Vogue, USA Today, BBC and CNN. In addition, he was invited to television more than once. His international reputation as a talented contemporary artist was finally established in May 2006 when he created the world's first underwater sculpture park in Grenada, West Indies, off the coast of Mexico. It is this work that is considered the crowning achievement of the sculptor.

Famous underwater sculptures and their plaster prototypes

The famous Taylor Underwater Sculpture Park is located at a depth of 9-10 meters, which makes them easily accessible to anyone with scuba diving. Today it is favorite place divers and connoisseurs of the underwater world. Locals They also offer anyone who wants to view the beauty of Taylor’s creation from a boat with a glass bottom. Thanks to the refraction of the sun's rays, everyone who visited this place noted a certain mysticism and mystery, because initially the city of people under water was associated with something mythical and fairy-tale.

It is interesting that the prototypes of each character underwater park became real people - residents of Grenada. Initially, Taylor made unique plaster casts of women and men, children and old people, which he later used to create the final models, which were submerged under water. At the same time, the author took into account that the underwater environment is very aggressive and difficult to work with. The object is subject to constant change, under the influence of water, light, sand and marine life. The cement base and the unique chemical composition of the mixture from which the figures are made actively promotes the colonization of coral and marine organisms.

Taylor's most famous underwater sculptures have a deep meaning and address the viewer with one message - “Take care of nature!”:

"Chances of Fate". The figure depicts a circle of children tied together by hands. These are life-size plaster prints taken from a group of children of different ethnic backgrounds. The composition is located at a depth of five meters. This work withstands strong currents and reproduces one of the primary geometric forms, evoking ideas of unity and continuum. Children are by nature adaptive to their environment. The use of children's images in the work emphasizes the importance of creating a sustainable and well-managed environment - a space for future generations to live. Taylor notes that about forty percent of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed, and this figure will rise. His work reminds us that the marine environment is in constant flux, and this in turn reflects the acute vicissitudes of changing landscapes and our own lives.


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"The Lost Correspondent". The Lost Correspondent depicts a man sitting at a desk with a typewriter. The table is covered with a collection of newspaper articles and clippings that date back to the 1970s. Many of them are of political significance and reflect the period of Grenada's conflict with Cuba in the period immediately preceding the revolution. The work informs about rapid changes in communication between generations. Taking the form of a traditional correspondent, the lone figure becomes little more than a relic, a fossil in a lost world.


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"Gardener of Hope". The sculpture depicts a young girl reclining on the steps of a garden patio, tending to a variety of potted plants. The potted plants are propagated from live coral cuttings taken from areas of the reef system damaged by storms and human activity. This method, a well-developed reef conservation procedure, salvages damaged coral fragments by providing new suitable substrate. The sculpture, a synthesis between art and science, conveys a message of hope and prosperity, depicting human intervention in nature as positive and regenerative. The young girl symbolizes a new, renewed kinship with the environment, a role model for future generations. The interaction between inanimate and living forms highlights potential symbiotic relationships with underwater life systems. Over the past few decades, we have lost more than 40% of our natural coral reefs. Scientists predict the final death of 80% of the remaining structures by 2050. Gardener of Hope aims to focus attention on this important, often overlooked, environmental issue. The sculpture is based on specialized habitat spaces intended for the life of certain species of sea creatures, such as moray eels, juvenile fish and lobsters.


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"Archive of Lost Desires". The Archive of Lost Desires features an underwater archive maintained by a male recorder. The archive contains hundreds of messages in bottles, united by the natural forces of the ocean. The recorder collects the individual bottles and classifies the contents according to the nature of each message - fear, hope, loss or dream. The sculpture is located within a national marine park that has been previously damaged by hurricanes and tropical storms. The choice of location is intended to attract a large number of visitors to a region remote from other areas of the pristine reef, allowing it to develop naturally.


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The oceans are teeming with microscopic organisms that continually drift down to the seafloor, attaching and colonizing along the way to any hard, safe surface such as patches of rock, thereby creating the foundation of a natural reef. Coral reefs attract a variety of marine life (such as colorful fish, turtles, sea ​​urchins, sponges and sharks) and also provide enclosed spaces for sea creatures to breed and hide. Jason de Cairo Taylor is a unique modern sculptor who, in addition to popularizing his own creativity, actively draws public attention to the problem of the death of coral reefs and creates an excellent basis for the formation of new reef areas.

Close your eyes and imagine the most ideal place on the planet. After all, everyone has their own ideal place. For some, this is a tropical island: sun, waves, yellow sand, bananas, coconuts... For some, the ideal place is his father's house. What is the ideal place for sound artists? The strangest eccentrics, for whom everything is completely different from people?

Sculptor Jason Taylor created his perfect world… under the water! He is the creator of amazing underwater compositions, which tourists from all over the world come to admire.

Art is beginning to capture more and more new areas and locations. If previously everything was limited to just the walls of caves - wherever their hands reached, they created, then with the development of humanity and technology, much more opportunities have appeared to express oneself, to leave your mark, an imprint on the planet, to add a piece of beauty.

So, what is the ideal place for a person with a sound vector - a “thing in itself”, a person rushing into mysterious depths unknown? A person who clearly draws a parallel between the inner and outer world, the world on this and that side of the eardrum?

The sound guy is born and receives his first injuries. The world, so loud and polyphonic, so annoying and always trying to shake the person with the sound vector out of his cozy quiet shell, continually hits the most painful thing - the sensitive ears of the sound person - the main organ through which this same eccentric learns the world and himself. You cannot see God with your eyes. You can only hear it, feel it - which is what the sound engineer has been doing all his adult life.

If you have a sound vector, then you obviously remember how you hid from everyone in a dark closet or closet, or some other secluded place where you could sit for hours and think, think, think. The ideal place for a sound engineer is a place devoid of loud sounds and people. And the mysterious depths of the ocean with their silent inhabitants - why is this not the same ideal world?

So, obviously, Jason Taylor, a sculptor who has anal and skin vectors from below and sound and visual from above, believed so. As a person with anal and visual vectors, Jason Taylor became a sculptor, because culture and everything connected with it is the native element for such people, the creators of science and art. In 1998 he graduated from Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London, Department of Sculpture and Ceramics. In addition to art, Jason Taylor had another passion - the ocean and its mysterious depths. That's why he became a certified diving instructor.

It is worth noting that diving often becomes a favorite activity of people with a sound-visual cord. After all, just think how wonderful the underwater world is! It fascinates with its play of color and light, wonderful plants and creatures, so alien to the land world. There is scope here for true connoisseurs of beauty - people with a visual vector. On the other hand, as I said above, the underwater world attracts sound artists with its mystery, unknownness, desolation and, ultimately, silence. Once you put on a mask and dive, it’s as if you find yourself on an alien planet where the laws of erectus do not apply. Where everything is different and you even move differently - either you swim, or you fly, or you plunge into the web of the unconscious... In addition, there is direct stimulation of the eardrum by pressure changes.

So, Jason Taylor was a sculptor and a diving instructor, and as a man of course, talented and gifted with the light of genius, he came to the most obvious and most logical decision for himself: he simply combined his two most important passions, thereby finding fulfillment for all of its vectors. It would seem that what could be simpler and at the same time more ingenious?

Jason Taylor began to create where only a few had tried before. And despite the fact that he had predecessors who placed sculptures on the bottom of the sea, Taylor’s idea is novel and original.

Let's start with the fact that all the sculptures, which are the fruit of the golden hands of a brilliant master, are created from special materials that are completely harmless to the inhabitants of the ocean. Jason Taylor, a visual advocate for ecology, creates sculptures that will not only delight the human eye, but will also become a new home for the inhabitants of an ideal deep-sea world. In some works, holes are made where corals can grow, other sculptures seem to be made of twigs, between which the inhabitants of the ocean can find a roof over their heads.

The main task that the sculptor sets for himself is to fit his works into the world of the underwater depths to the maximum. Unlike his predecessors, Jason Taylor does not struggle to annually cleanse his works and compositions of algae, starfish and other things. On the contrary, he makes every effort to ensure that his creations become an organic part of the underwater world. This presentation has a special philosophical subtext: the artist wants to show how short is the age of man, the age of civilization, and how endless is nature, which gives birth to life where everything is dead, gives birth to something out of nothing. And at the same time, the sculptor wants to show how beautiful human life is in harmony with nature.

What are Jason Taylor's sculptures? These are, first of all, compositions whose center is man and human activity in all its manifestations. Each composition is unique in its own way and carries a special meaning, smoothly echoing the author’s audio-visual ideas about the world.

For example, the “Alternation” project represents children of different nationalities standing in a circle and holding hands tightly. This composition undoubtedly symbolizes the human world - the kinship of all peoples on Earth. Man is man's brother. An interesting detail that is worth paying attention to is that the children stand with their backs relative to the circle and each other. Their gaze is directed outward - into the depths of the ocean, as if they are protecting this very circle, symbolizing the world, so fragile and valuable, from some external threat.

Another famous Taylor sculpture sunk to the bottom of the sea is called “The Dream Collector.” We see a lonely man at a table, thinking about his notes about something important. A dog is sleeping serenely next to you - your best friend and comforter. Undoubtedly, we see a portrait of an anal sound artist, secluded in his thoughts and dreams. What is he thinking about? What is he writing about? In our hero's desk there are many bottles in which messages from all over the world are sealed. Those same dreams and dreams of people just like him. Perhaps, here at the bottom of the sea these very messages will reach the addressee?

All of Jason Taylor's heroes in one way or another reflect his own view of the world. These are single dreamers who, in spite of everything, live in harmony with the universe and their “I”. This is the Gardener of Hopes, serenely waiting for strange corals and algae to grow in her pots. This is the Lost Correspondent, frozen in anticipation of inspiration. And the Cyclist, rushing into the distance along the road of knowledge, and many, many others.

The crowning achievement of Taylor's work this moment is the Silent Evolution Underwater Sculpture Park, which has become a landmark of the city of Cancun in Mexico. “Silent Evolution” is about people again, many people of different ages, genders, cultures, beliefs and even eras. This Park is a panorama of the changes of humanity from primitive tribes to modern society. Poor and rich, suffering and rejoicing, chatting affably and looking up with inspiration - this is our collective portrait. Here is a happily smiling girl frozen in anticipation of a life so multifaceted and different, which is about to plunge her into its colorful pool. Here is a woman expecting a child - a person of the future, who, undoubtedly, will one day stand on par with this motley crowd, united, in spite of everything, by common aspirations and hopes.

He currently plays for the New York Jets of the National Football League. He was drafted in the 3rd round by the Miami Dolphins in the 1997 NFL Draft. Taylor also played college football for the Akron Zips.


Jason was selected to the NFL Pro Bowl six times; he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2006. At one time, Taylor played for the pro-club Washington Redskins.

Jason Taylor was born on September 1, 1974. Despite being homeschooled from the 10th to the 12th grades, the young man was actively involved in sports at Woodland Hills High School, Churchill, Pennsylvania, where he particularly excelled in football and basketball. As a high school senior, Taylor won the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League award as both a tight end and free safety.

For four years, Jason was a letterman - a sponsored player on a university sports team,

and was also a three-year starter at the University of Akron. During his collegiate career, he accumulated 279 tackles (tackles), 21 sacks (blocking the opposing team's quarterback) and 3 interceptions (INT). In 1996, Taylor was named National Defensive Player of the Week for his outstanding performance against Virginia Tech, when he racked up 12 tackles, two sacks and three fumble recoveries.

The American football player was drafted in the 3rd round, 73rd overall, by the Miami Dolphins in the 1997 NFL Draft. Signing a 4-year contract worth approximately $1.3 million in July of that year, Jason quickly established himself as one of the top defensive ends in the league. He made the starting roster in his rookie season and had 5 sacks and forced two fumbles (two interceptions). 15th

In April 2000, Taylor was on a one-year, $1.027 million contract. He was responsible for 73 tackles and 14.5 sacks that season, earning him the honor of being named to his first Pro Bowl.

Best year ever Jason's career year was 2006, when he posted 13.5 sacks, 2 interceptions and forced 10 fumbles, making him the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year that year. In 2007, Miami Dolphins fans voted Taylor to the franchise's All-Star team, joining the team alongside Bill Stanfill.

On July 20, 2008, the linebacker was traded to the Washington Redskins of the National Football League, but on March 2, 2009, he was released from the team due to his refusal to participate in the offseason program. The athlete said that he wanted to devote this time to his family in Flo

Reade (Florida). On March 13, 2009, Jason signed a one-year, $1.1 million deal with the Miami Dolphins, including a $400,000 incentive. Finally, on April 20, 2010, Taylor signed a contract with the New York Jets.

His wife, Katina, is the sister of his former All-Star teammate, Zach Thomas. Taylor has three children: sons Isaiah and Mason and daughter Zoey. The football player's wife filed for divorce twice in 2006, citing irreconcilable differences, and asked for custody of the children, but withdrew the petitions both times.

In 2004, the couple founded the Jason Taylor Foundation, aimed at improving the lives of children in South Florida. In 2007, Taylor received the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for his social work off the field.