The Silent Evolution

This piece from 2012, also in Cancun, contains 450 life-sized cement figures. “It’s a community of people, standing in defense of their oceans,” says Taylor. He cast about 90 real-life models to create the large-scale, man-made reef which is now home to more than 2,000 juvenile corals. “A lot of the people are replicated,” he said. “Because they change so dramatically underwater, I can have two figures from the same mold, and after a year they’re completely unrecognizable.” Taylor sources his models on the street and through the Internet, but for this piece he sought out local fisherman. The casting process takes 20 to 40 minutes — each person is slathered in Vaseline, then plaster. “I don’t think people realize at the time what it means. It’s only afterwards that they realize they’ve been immortalized,” he said. Many love it. “There’s one guy who has printed out his sculpture on t-shirts, and he does his own special guided tour.”

Taylor uses pH-neutral cement for his works, a material he found thanks to the artificial reef building company Reef Ball. “They’d worked out that this pH-neutral cement was important for coral polyps to attach to,” says Taylor. “They’d also made it really durable so that it could sustain a coral reef.” The results are vibrant in the day, but even more so after the sun sets. “I love diving at night — the torch light illuminates all the true colors of the coral, sponges and algae,” he says. “Sometimes when there is a full moon, you can turn off all the lights and it is just beautiful.”