Anthony Lacanaud’s flagship project
We will have to wait until June to finally discover the wonderful underwater museum of the Friends of the Underwater Museum of Marseille ! About ten sculptures will take place off the Catalan beach, under 5m deep.
Sculptures under the sea
These unique works of art are inspired by the underwater museum of Cancun. The museum draws its ideas from the works of Jason DeCaires Taylor, an artist renowned for his work around the world. In Marseille, international artists such as Evelyne Galinski or Davide Galbiati model the sculptures of the underwater museum.
To see them, all you need are fins, a mask and a snorkel ! Access will be free : all the curious can discover the museum ! The visit will still be supervised by an experienced instructor, and a complete safety protocol will ensure that there is no danger.
An ecological museum
The site is a good spot for the implantation of the museum ; it is not a Natura 2000 site like the Calanques, for example.
It was also designed with respect for marine fauna and flora in mind. Indeed, the underwater museum does not only have an esthetic and cultural function, it also has an ecological dimension. The sculptures placed on the seabed will act on the ecosystem in the same way as an artificial reef. The cement used to make the sculptures is itself an “inert iron-free marine cement with a neutral pH and substrate to feed the fish” (Anthony Lacanaud). The museum will provide habitat for fish and plants from the Catalan basin !
The Friends of the Underwater Museum of Marseille hope to develop the project further and involve diving schools, new artists over the next 3 years.