Concrete sculptures soon to be submerged on the Great Barrier Reef have arrived in North Queensland as part of the award-winning Museum of Underwater Art.
Eight statues, standing 2.2 metres tall and weighing several tonnes, will be installed on the ocean floor off Townsville's Magnetic Island to create a public snorkelling attraction.
"It is the first time it has been done in the Southern Hemisphere," Museum of Underwater Art board director Paul Victory said.
The Ocean Sentinels installation is the second underwater sculpture project by the museum, which created its "coral greenhouse" dive site on John Brewer Reef in 2019.
"The sculptures are designed to facilitate habitat, both coral and equine fish habitat," Mr Victory said.
'Feels quite surreal'
The statues were built by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor using concrete and stainless steel, before being painstakingly shipped to Townsville.
They were modelled off pioneering marine scientists and conservationists, whose bodies have been morphed with marine life to create hybrid forms.
Among them is Professor Peter Harrison, who was a leading member of the research team that discovered mass coral spawning on Magnetic Island in 1981.
"What I'm really hoping is once [they] are installed, my sculpture and all the other sculptures will start to be covered by baby corals … and they will become a living part of the recovery stages of Magnetic Island reefs."
Molly Steer, a young Cairns environmentalist who has been campaigning to eradicate single-use plastic straws, was also selected as a model for one of the statues.
Snorkel site still undecided
The artworks will be on display at the Museum of Tropical Queensland for the next two months before they are installed in their underwater home.
But Mr Victory said the location for the snorkel trail had not been decided.
"There has been an extensive process around consultation with the community about the potential sites."
Some locals had raised environmental concerns about one of the proposed locations.
The final site will be determined by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, with the sculptures set to be installed in June.
Once operational, Mr Victory said he anticipated the combination of Museum of Underwater Art attractions would lure between 8,000 and 12,000 visitors annually.
Another installation, planned for Palm Island, is still in the community consultation phase.
