Still Life Aquatic Transcript Total Running time 3:47

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Still Life Aquatic

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My name is Jason de Caires Taylor

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and I’m a sculpture who specialises in environmental art.

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So I make sculptural installations that go in unique places for the public to view.

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I studied sculpture here in London and then became a scuba diver,

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and travelled around and worked in lots of different locations.

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I thought it was about time that I used both those different professions.

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I tend to have most of my unusual ideas, when I’m doing the most mundane things.

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I was coming home on a night bus and had this idea,

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I just finished it about a year ago.

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It’s over 65 different sculptures,

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all located within Moliniere Bay off the west coast of Grenada.

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There are many different reasons why it appealed to me.

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Foremost is that environmentally it was very good.

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I really felt like I wanted to make some form of contribution.

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And all the underwater works are designed to become an artificial reef.

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So they create a habitat space for fish and also a surface area

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for corals and invertebrates to breed

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Some of the sculptures are out around two metres

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and you can see them from the surface on a boat.

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and the deepest is about 8 metres.

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As an artist working underwater it can be amazing,

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the light changes, the atmosphere changes

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your relationship to the work changes

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You can swim over, you can swim underneath it

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you’re in this three dimensional world.

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All of the laws have changed – gravity, light, refraction – it’s fascinating

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It’s also very interactive, people can touch the sculptures

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Some of the sculptures are lying on a sandy bed

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and the sand actually shifts around

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so some days they will be slightly covered, and some days you won’t see them at all.

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It’s almost like an archaeological discovery.

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People go along and they brush a bit of sand off and reveal a nose

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or brush a bit off and see a shoulder.

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All of the works change on a daily basis -the shapes, the textures, the colours

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and the form is constantly moving.

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Ring of Children Vicissitudes -that was 26 different casts,

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and that is about change and how children adapt to their surroundings.

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They take on the characteristics and the personality of where they are.

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In this way the children do the same

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I think the sea is something that everybody is fascinated with.

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We’re surrounded by water and yet in so many ways, we have such little understanding of it.

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