While many know Miami, Florida for its bustling nightlife and vibrant displays of art and culture, its beaches are also home to a similarly colorful ecosystem under the sea.
Just a couple hundred feet offshore, Miami Beach is the keeper of the Great Florida Reef, the third-largest coral reef in the world and the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States.
It’s also one that is in desperate need of protection.
Like its global counterparts, the Great Florida Reef has been in sharp decline since the 1980s. Facing threats like bleaching due to elevated water temperatures, sea-level rise, and the spread of disease, both coral and the other organisms that thrive in the reef are at risk of extinction.
But experts are experimenting with a theory: Maybe art can save it.
With construction starting this year, the Great Florida Reef will soon feature a 7-mile public art installation: The Reefline.
Both a sculpture park and a snorkeling trail, the development will also serve as an artificial reef to offer shelter to fish, which will, in turn, help corals thrive.
“How do we turn doomsday into optimism?” Reefline founder and artistic director Ximena Caminos asked NBC News.
“Mother Nature is the ultimate artist,” she added. “What we’re doing is giving nature and amplifying that marine habitat, because it’s needed.”
Artificial reefs aren’t a new approach, but this combination of science, artistry, and tourism on Miami Beach is.
Colin Foord, Reefline’s coral expert, said that the design of the sculptures included in the underwater park will rescue dislodged, climate-resilient corals and plant clones on the project’s hybrid reef.
“We are accelerating the development of a fully healthy coral reef by decades by putting out small pieces of coral that we are growing here in the lab,” Foord told NBC News.
New marine communities will also help prevent beachfront erosion.
And inviting snorkelers to strap on their flippers will help them appreciate — and consequently, protect — the magnificent mileage under the sea.
“When you put the mask on and you get into the water, it’s like time slows down,” Foord added.
“I think that if more people have that type of opportunity, then that helps change public perception about the need to protect the environment.”
The park will be located 600 feet offshore and will run north along the coastline of the beach for seven miles. Partially funded by a $5 million bond approved by Miami voters in 2022, Reefline will open in phases over several years. Phase I is being implemented right now.
The first exhibition in Phase I is a piece by Leandro Erlich called “Concrete Coral.” A revised version of a sand installation portraying a 60+ car traffic jam displayed on the beach in 2019, this new piece includes 22 cars and trucks, congregating on the ocean floor as a representation of the impact of emissions on the planet.
It is also seeded with Coral Loks, devices that help plant baby corals into the artificial reef.
The second installation is called "Miami Reef Star," which will feature a massive 90-foot star that will be so large it can be visible from aircraft landing over the beach.
"Miami Reef Star" will be part of "Star Compass," a series of three large-scale pieces — one of which is a 100-piece life-size elephant sculpture — and will be composed of dozens of smaller stars, all of which will act as a hybrid coral reef.
The modules are being 3D printed using a material called CarbonXinc and will also contain Coral Lok. CarbonXinc is an eco-friendly concrete that pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, turning the Reef Star into a carbon sink, too.
“There’s a massive amount of engineering that went into this,” artist Carlos Betancourt, the creator of "Miami Reef Star," told The Guardian.
“We’re working with marine biologists, scientists from the University of Miami … we’ve learned intensely about this.”
Other future phases will include a sculpture modeled after the heart of a blue whale, as well as a series of pieces that will come to form a “breakwater” that helps prevent coastal erosion.
And visitors can enjoy it all in what the city calls “an underwater art crawl.”
While no boat or bulky scuba gear is required, it might help to wear a mask and flippers, as visitors swim out from the shore to see and interact with the submerged sculptures.
“Much of the artwork raises awareness of the delicate marine ecosystem and often presents a thought-provoking call to action for sustainability,” Greater Miami & Miami Beach shared in a statement.
“The Reefline not only offers a free and accessible way for the public to view art, but it presents the chance for snorkelers to experience Miami’s rich array of sea life, from colorful fish to sea turtles.”
While the project will take time to fully come to fruition, Caminos believes it could be a defining landmark of the future.
“[The Reefline] has the power to inspire people to act,” she told The Guardian. “The oceans are our heritage, and they are dying in silence because they don’t have a voice. They need someone to stand up for them. The world is at a very complex moment, and messages of hope are needed.”
Header image courtesy of Reefline
