Swim Through This Spanish Museum

Jason deCaires Taylor’s most recent artworks are not displayed against a stark gallery wall, or perched on the pedestal of a contemporary building. Rather, they sit nearly 50 feet underwater off the coast of Lanzarote, in Spain’s Canary Islands. Taylor’s Museo Atlantico—“Europe’s first underwater museum”— will open to the public (that is, scuba divers and snorklers) on Feb. 25. The project, which the artist says is funded and supported by the island’s local government, will also include an underwater botanical garden.

Here, the sculpture installation The Rubicon, which Taylor describes as featuring a “group of 35 people walking toward a gate, a point of no return or a portal to another world.”

Sculptures and Photographs by Jason deCaires Taylor

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Sculptures from The Rubicon installation are arranged on land in Lanzarote.

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Divers sinking The Selfie.

Sculptures and Photographs by Jason deCaires Taylor

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Here, the Raft of Lampedusa, a harrowing depiction of Europe’s migration crisis, referencing French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa. “Drawing parallels between the abandonment suffered by sailors in his shipwreck scene and the current refugee crisis, the work is not intended as a tribute or memorial to the many lives lost but as a stark reminder of the collective responsibiliy of our now global community,” Taylor says.

Sculptures and Photographs by Jason deCaires Taylor