The world’s most famous underwater sculpture museum, The Cancun Underwater Museum is a Non-Profit Organization situated in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico and is devoted to the Art of Conservation. It is also called MUSA (Museo Subacuatico de Arte) and is in the waters surrounding Cancun and Isla Mujeres boasting of over 500 life-size sculptures used to promote coral life.
Immerse yourself in one of the most beautiful and clear waters of the world located in the Mexican Caribbean. The Cancun Underwater Museum has a series of enchanting underwater sculptural installations used to protect the National Marine Park of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
Diving and snorkeling enthusiasts from all over will have the wonderful opportunity to marvel at more than 400 authentic sculptures in depths ranging from 9 to 20 feet. Jason de Caires Taylor is the artist behind the project which offers a contemporary and cultural prospective of how the Mayan people have evolved through out the years in “The Silent Evolution”.
In the year 2009, a majestic underwater museum also called MUSA (Museo Subacuático de Arte) was created in the waters around Cancun, Isla Mujeres, and Punta Nizuc. The project founded by Jaime Gonzalez Cano of The National Marine Park, Roberto Diaz of The Cancun Nautical Association and Jason de Caires Taylor features over 500 permanent life-size sculptures and is regarded as one of the largest and most daring underwater artificial art attractions in the whole world.
The sculptures that you can find in the underwater museum are all specially designed to become artificial reefs and are built from special materials which promote the rich marine life and create areas for corals to flourish and marine creatures to breed and take refuge, boosting the local ecosystem. The physical outlooks of the amazing and eclectic sculptures will transform over time as the coral grows and marine life at the same time colonizes the structure.
The Cancun Underwater Sculpture Museum aims to demonstrate the interaction between art and environmental science and forms a complex reef structure for marine life to colonize, inhabit, and increase bio mass on a grand scale.
The Cancun Marine Park is one of the most visited structures of water in the world with over 750,000 visitors each year, placing enormous pressure on its resources.
The Cancun Underwater Museum is divided into two galleries called Salon Manchones and Salon Nizuc. The first gallery is eight meters deep and suitable for both divers and snorkelers and the second one is four meters deep and only permitted for snorkeling.
Art installations by Jason De Caires in the MUSA include: “Resurrection”, “The Speaker”, “No Turning Back”, “Vein Man”, “Reclamation”; “The Last Supper”, “The Listener”, “Holy Man”, “Time Bomb” (fuse), “Time Bomb” (mine), “Void”, “Inertia”, “Inheritance”, and “The Gardener” featured in the “Exhibition Space” in the Punta Nizuc gallery. While in the “Exhibition Space” in the Salon de Manchones are the following art works: “The Bankers”, “Urban Reef”, “Time Bomb” (fuse), “Anthropocene”, “The Silent Evolution”; “Man on Fire” and “The Dream Collector”.