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17 March 2022
The Coral Greenhouse is a salty mix of culture and conservation on the Great Barrier reef – We dive into the world’s newest underwater art museum.
Everyone who has ever been part of Expedition Drenched shares a common goal: to introduce the world to the strange but amazingly beautiful and intensely important oceans’ inhabitants. By showing people the wonders of the world below the waves, we hope that we’ll inspire people to protect it. It’s always challenging to find new and exciting ways to bring marine conservation issues into the hearts of everyone, but this time we’ve found something truly memorable.
This episode has us sailing down northeast of Townsville, North Queensland, searching for our mooring at the John Brewer reef and our next underwater adventure – the Coral Greenhouse installation by The Museum of Underwater Art (MOUA). For the crew, this underwater experience will be all about the intersection between culture and conservation.
The Coral Greenhouse isn’t the only underwater sculpture in the world, but it is the world’s newest installation. Your very own Expedition Drenched crew was lucky enough to be some of the very first people in the world to be allowed to dive down and check out the cement ‘scientists’ hard at work repairing the world’s coral reefs.
Coral Greenhouse facts
The installation is part of a series of artworks located right in the Great Barrier Reef. The two installations currently part of the collection were created by world-renowned underwater sculptor, Jason de Caires Taylor. Taylor is part of a new generation of artists who have dived into the underwater world and use it as an exhibition space. His works are permanent, span several continents, and have reached a global audience of over 1 billion people. Pretty impressive for works that aren’t in a traditional museum.
Ocean Siren is the inaugural sculpture in the collection and was installed next to the Stand Jetty in Townsville. Coral Greenhouse is the second, and largest installation, and we could not have been more excited to strap on our masks and fins and dive down to check it out.
But what exactly were we diving into?
Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a sculpture of a greenhouse, but for corals. The imposing yet airy structure of the greenhouse itself sits on the sandy bottom and whispers at curious divers above with its eerie form. Inside the greenhouse, there are 20 ‘reef guardians’ who are all propagating coral and spreading a message about reef conservation.
One whole side of the large structure is lined with cement recreations of scientific workbenches where the ‘reef guardians’ are busy studying and propagating corals. One is using a microscope to examine a specimen, some are sitting on the bench holding ‘coral’ pots, and some are working on transplanting corals into new pots.
Outside the extremely tall, vaulted greenhouse door are two large, raised growing beds that are tended by two cement scientists. One is holding a shovel as though he is actively working the ‘soil’ in one of the growing beds. And there’s a piece of Staghorn coral that has been secured to the shovel to make it look like the shovel has sprouted new marine life.
Some of the more striking aspects of the installation are the large metal trees planted in the sand around the greenhouse structure. Tall and with philodendron-like leaves protruding from the main stalk on thin, fragile branches, the trees cast shadows onto the sand and create an environment that is a bit confusing for the brain. Swimming underneath them gives you the sense of being in a jungle, instead of on the sandy seafloor on the Great Barrier Reef.
The entire structure is beautiful but also creepy. Its characteristics will change over time as the structure fills in with corals and other encrusting growths, but perhaps for now the eerie feeling that the installation exudes should remind us that a world without coral reefs is a world with a dark future.
Considering our roots at Expedition Drenched, we’re big supporters of Not for Profit organizations that make the world a better place through philanthropic activities. MOUA provides an underwater experience that inspires reef conservation, achieves positive environmental outcomes, and engages the community in marine conservation all through the generous donations they receive.
So of course, donating money is one direct and easy way to support the MOUA. But you can also get a bit creative and adopt a coral that will be planted in the Coral Greenhouse and will grow there for years to come. You’ll even get a photo of your little coral baby so you can show it off to your marine conservation friends.
But donating money or adopting a coral isn’t the only way to help out this project. If you’ve visited the Coral Greenhouse or the John Brewer Reef and have observed a fish, coral, invertebrate, shark, or turtle, you can submit your photos and experiences to a citizen science page that will help to track the arrival of new life to the underwater sculptures and protect the marine world that we love so much.
The MOUA has two more installations planned for the future: one at Palm Island, and the last one at Magnetic Island. While there hasn’t been much information released about the two additional sites, the Palm Island installation is already supported by the Australian Government through the Building Our Future Fund. Stay tuned to our channel and our blog feed for updates on these two exciting new underwater playgrounds. You can be sure we’ll be pointing our compass in their direction as soon as we can!
The Coral Greenhouse is more than just a piece of art. The artist hopes that his installations encourage more culturally and environmentally aware tourism and that more and more tourists start to understand that our natural worlds are breathing ecosystems.
This unique underwater art installation is continuing the conversation about marine conservation, it’s providing a habit for countless species of corals, fish, and other marine life, and it’s also showing us how we can unify and connect our artificial designs to their surroundings. The Coral Greenhouse is the ultimate mix of culture and marine conservation, and a perfect stop for the ocean-loving Expedition Drenched crew.
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Expedition drenched is a U.S. based marine educational non profit 501c3 made possible by our donors and patrons. If you love scuba, sailing, travel, adventure, exploration, conservation, and all things aquatic, we really hope you will continue to follow us on our journey. Our goal in making these videos is to show the world all the amazing, beautiful, and strange inhabitants of the ocean in the hopes that we will all be inspired to protect it.
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Expedition Drenched has long since grown from its humble beginnings to now being an Ocean Advocacy Lifestyle Brand that houses many International Artists from all over the world.
