France gets a new underwater museum in Cannes

France’s Cannes now has an amazing new museum that will certainly give you something to look forward to. The French Riviera now has an underwater art museum, located off Île Sainte Marguerite. The museum currently has six sculptures that are over six feet tall.
The French Riviera is of course known for its opulence, and it is only fitting that such a novel museum has been established in this region. Launched by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor, the new museum in the Mediterranean Sea has sculptures of faces. The sculptures depict portraits of locals who live in this region, and took four years to complete. The sculptures are that of all age groups, from children, to older people.

The aim of such a museum is to draw the attention of the world to the declining state of the ocean, the Mediterranean in this case. Each of these sculptures weigh 12 tons, and are installed at a depth of 3 m.

The sculptures as mentioned above are that of locals. So the oldest one is that of an 80-year old fisherman who has seen the declining state of the sea. He called in 40 locals who were interested in having their faces sculpted for the project, and from there he selected six. The sculptures installed under water only after the area underneath was cleared of garbage, old pipes, and cables.

Interestingly, each of these faces have been sliced in half. It is however not the first underwater art project for the artist, as he has been credited with more than 1000 underwater sculptures across the world.