Ocean Atlas

Ocean Atlas is a monumental underwater sculpture by the British artist Jason deCaires Taylor, installed in 2014 in shallow water off the west coast of New Providence, near Nassau, in the Bahamas. Commissioned by the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) for an underwater sculpture garden honoring its founder, Sir Nicholas Nuttall, it stands about 5.5 meters (18 feet) tall and weighs some 60 tons. When it was installed, it was described as the largest single sculpture ever placed underwater.

What you are looking at

A young girl crouches on the sandy seabed, one knee drawn up and the other leg folded beneath her. Her head is bowed and turned to the side, resting against her raised arm. Her other arm reaches up and back, palm turned toward the surface, as if she is holding up the whole weight of the water above her.

The figure is pale gray, and its surface shows faint seams where the sections were joined. Sunlight filters down through the water and plays across her shoulders and face in rippling patterns. In the photograph above, a snorkeler floats near the surface over her head, giving a sense of the scale: the top of the sculpture reaches almost to the surface, while her body sits about five meters down. A small yellow fish swims past her knee.

How it was made

Taylor modeled the figure on a local Bahamian girl, scanned and sculpted at full scale. The sculpture was cast in sections of pH-neutral marine cement, designed to encourage corals, sponges and other organisms to settle on it, with a stainless-steel armature, and assembled on the seabed. Over time, marine life colonizes the surface, so the work changes continually, the human form slowly becoming part of the reef.

Meaning

The title refers to Atlas, the Titan of Greek myth condemned to hold up the sky. Taylor replaces the muscular god with a child carrying the ocean, an image of the burden that environmental damage places on the next generation. The sculpture also serves a practical purpose: it creates a new artificial reef and draws snorkelers and divers away from fragile natural reefs.

Taylor, who trained as a sculptor and is a qualified diving instructor, has made underwater museums and sculpture parks in Grenada, Mexico, Lanzarote and elsewhere since 2006.

Where to see it

The sculpture lies in shallow water off the west coast of New Providence and can be visited by snorkelers and divers, usually with local tour operators. See also the classical Statue of Atlas, Building Bridges and our famous sculptures collection, and the Jason deCaires Taylor page.