Living Sea Sculpture: Colleen Flanigan at TEDxWoodsHole

Art, scientific inquiry, and engineering meet with emotion, compassion, and composition to provide coral reef support, shore protection, and marine habitat in Flanigan's "Living Sea Sculpture: Contemporary Art as Coral Refuge."

How many of you have heard
of Amphitrite, goddess of the sea?

Have you heard of Poseidon,
my husband? (Laughter)

He gets around –

I didn't want to marry him
but he kept sending his dolphins after me,

and finally, I said,
"Fine, I'll marry you,

on the condition that we clean up
our house, it's a mess!"

All the rubble from dynamite fishing
and deep sea trawling,

corals bleaching from climate change,
pollution, disease.

Corals are not only majestically beautiful
but incredibly functional,

providing habitat for more than
25% of marine species

and protecting shores from erosion.

By running low volt direct current
through sea water,

limestone minerals
deposit on a metal.

And the resulting surface
is a natural substrate

for corals to settle upon
and colonize.

Architect professor Wolf Hilbertz
invented Biorock as a building material,

and he teamed up with Dr. Tom Goreau,
President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance,

to develop coral restoration

and sustainable fishing practices
in aquaculture.

In 2003, I'm sitting in the audience
of a sustainable architecture conference

and I saw this –

Oh my God, I was so moved,
I had an epiphany.

I looked down, I was wearing
my two ocean rings

– one with cast barnacles and fish,

the other has ceramic bits
I found in Glass Beach.

I realized that everything
I was doing at the time

was somehow a reflection
of the Biorock process.

I was spinning dog, cat
and human hair into yarn

and accreting it
onto chicken wire forms

for this installation about
human relationships with natural resources.

This is an electroformed
copper cauliflower,

electroformed copper seedpods
and hammered raised copper vessel,

these are cast silver
dogwood blossoms.

I was freezing nature into metal,

and now I saw
I could use metal to grow life.

This is thousands of kids
weaving fabric,

basically hiding the weaving wall sculpture
I made beneath.

The Randall Museum
asked me to make a replica

of this Beniamino Bufano Cat,

so kids could weave wire to flush out
its form like these previous pieces.

So, I had to do this –
I learned to scuba,

I went to Pemuteran, Bali –
home of Karang Lestari,

it's the largest coral nursery in the world.

And I took a Biorock workshop
with Wolf Hilbertz and Tom Goreau.

This a model –

this is one of the sculptures –

we did a lot of welding
at night when it was cooler,

and by day we would attach
coral fragments with wires and pliers.

Here is a progression
of Liku Liku.

The electrolysis creates an alkaline
buffer zone around the structure,

so corals can grow 2-6 times faster,

less energy goes
to the skeleton production,

and they can withstand increased temperatures
that normally kill them.

After 6 years, I returned
and Liku Liku is overgrown.

The sculptures can be
any size or shape,

from this small coral skirt
to this large dome,

to reefs miles long.

If we can build the super highway,
why not a super reef.

The process can be applied to –

or it's actually very beneficial
to oysters, mussels, sea-grasses –

and it can be applied
to artistic boat moorings

and living ocean mausoleums,

that attract fish, snorkelers
and photographers.

This past summer, I worked
with an amazing team

to make a sculpture for MUSA,
the underwater museum

in the National Marine Park
in Cancún.

And this is the work
of Jason deCaires Taylor,

he's the director and curator.

Here are some of the designs
I submitted –

I was trying to incorporate
some castings with metal and –

we landed on DNA –

While working on the model

I was contemplating content,
composition and function,

and I was also thinking of
how humans and corals

actually share very similar
immunity genetics.

So depending on your interpretation,

the helices can be dividing
or coming together.

The sculpture's in Mexico now awaiting
some final paperwork and funds,

so that we can return
as soon as possible,

and put it out there
and plant it with coral.

In the meantime, I'm working with Woody Wood
at Sea Horse Aquarium & Supply in Portland.

We're doing some experiments
in closed systems,

and through my artistic lens,
I'm learning a lot

about coral biology,
electrolysis and chemistry

in a very tactile, intimate way.

We need creativity, calcium
and courage to revive corals,

and to prevent them
from bleaching and dying.

And when you imagine
life support in the ocean,

it doesn't have to be
industrial and sterile.

It can be provocative,
experimental and inviting,

and if the corals collaborate
and play their part,

almost invisible.

(Applause)