Trying to Protect a Reef With an Otherworldly Diversion
“人造珊瑚礁”：大海深处的艺术与环保
CANCÚN, Mexico — Most people head off to an art exhibit with comfortable shoes and a deep appreciation for creativity. Jason deCaires Taylor’s work requires flippers and, to really appreciate it, a depth of at least 12 feet.
墨西哥，坎昆——大多数人穿着舒适的鞋子，带着对创作的深深欣赏去看艺术展。但是，要实地欣赏杰森·德凯尔·泰勒的作品(Jason deCaires Taylor’s work)，则要穿着脚蹼，深入至少12英尺的海底才行。
Mr. Taylor labors over his sculptures for weeks, five-ton concrete figures of men, women and children, many of them modeled after people in the fishing village near here where he lives and works. The little boy Carlito sitting on a rock. The proud Joaquín glancing skyward. The old man everyone knows as Charlie Brown clasping his chin in contemplation.
Mr. Taylor 为他的雕塑辛苦工作了数周。这些雕塑重达5吨，是用混凝土塑造的男人、女人和孩子，其中很多都是根据离他生活和工作的地点不远的渔村里的人塑造的。小男孩卡里托坐在岩石上。骄傲的祖昆仰望天空。被大家称为 Charlie Brown 的老男人托着下巴沉思。
墨西哥坎昆海底博物馆的大约500座雕塑中的一部分。
In a stifling warehouse filled with bodies — ceramic replicas and false starts — he fusses over their lips and noses. Gets the hair just right. Adjusts their clothing.
闷热的仓库里放满了身体——陶制的复制品和一些失败的尝试品——Mr. Taylor 对嘴唇和鼻子十分挑剔，头发做得一丝不苟，衣服也反复修改。
Then he sinks them in the sea.
然后，他把它们沉入海底。
There, they rest in ghostly repose in the Museo Subacuático de Arte here, serving at once as a tourist attraction and as a conservation effort by drawing divers and snorkelers away from the Mesoamerican Reef, the second-largest barrier reef system in the world, and toward this somewhat macabre, artificial one.
它们像幽灵一样栖息在海底博物馆(Museo Subacuático de Arte)，既吸引游客，又保护环境，因为它们可以吸引深潜者和浮潜者来看这些有点阴森的人工珊瑚礁，从而远离世界第二大珊瑚礁群——中美洲珊瑚礁。
The nearly 500 statues, the first ones placed in 2009 and 60 added this year, have acquired enough coral, seaweed and algae to give them the look of zombies with a particularly nightmarish skin condition. Eventually, in six years or so, the coral will completely overtake them, leaving only suggestive shapes.
第一批雕像是2009年沉下去的，今年添了60个。现在共有大约500个雕像，上面已经长满了珊瑚、海草和海藻，看起来像僵尸，皮肤的样子很可怕。到最后，也就是大约6年以后，它们会被珊瑚完全覆盖，只能看出大致的轮廓。
“Foremost, it’s an opportunity to view this other world,” Mr. Taylor said. “We are surrounded by water, but people have no understanding what their planet is. It helps see ourselves as part of the world.”
“最重要的是，这让我们有机会从另一个角度看问题，”Mr. Taylor 说：“我们被水环绕，但是却完全不理解我们的星球。它能让我们把自己当作世界的一部分来看待。”
Mr. Taylor places the works, anchored with special sand bolts, in water shallow enough for snorkelers to get a view, the sunlight filtering through the blue water casting odd shadows and drawing out unexpected pinks and oranges from the coral.
Mr. Taylor 把这些作品用特殊的砂质螺栓固定在浅海底部，这样浮潜者也能看到。阳光透过蓝色的海水，投射出怪异的阴影，使珊瑚放射出意想不到的粉色和橙色。
But divers get the most out of it, with close-ups of the rainbow swirl of coral and algae. Fish dart in and around and — in an ecological twist — feed off the “people.” At night, Mr. Taylor said, a family of sea turtles has been known to go sightseeing.
但还是深潜者看得最清楚，他们可以近距离观察珊瑚和海藻彩虹般的卷曲。鱼儿在珊瑚丛中或者四周飞快地游弋，还能以这些“人类”为食——这是生物链的大逆转。泰勒先生说，某天晚上曾有海龟一家前去参观他的作品。
Purists may shudder at the idea of altering the sea in any way. But Mr. Taylor, who uses marine-grade concrete specially prepared to entice coral and be close to neutral pH, notes that the exhibit inhabits but a fraction of the sea.
“纯化论者”可能为任何形式改造大海的行为感到不寒而栗。但是Mr. Taylor 使用的是为吸引珊瑚特制的海工混凝土，pH值接近中性。他特别强调，这些展览品只占用了海洋极小的一点地方。
“It’s like putting a sculpture in the Sahara,” he said, contending that the works contribute to the greater good of preserving the natural reef by diverting divers away from it.
“就像在撒哈拉沙漠里放了一个雕塑，”他说，并辩解道，这些作品有助于实现更重要的利益——通过把潜水者吸引开，来保护天然珊瑚。
Some scientists agree, as long as the artificial reefs are placed in a way that is minimally disruptive to the sea floor and to natural reefs.
有些科学家对此表示同意，说只要这些人造珊瑚的放置方式能把其对海底和天然珊瑚造成的破坏降到最低就没问题。
“I have seen the pictures, and it looks intriguing,” Richard E. Dodge, executive director of the National Coral Reef Institute in Florida, said of the museum. “If it is not so extensive that it impinges hugely on the natural reef, it does help by providing an alternative dive site.”
“我看过那些照片了，看起来还挺有趣的，”佛罗里达州天然珊瑚礁研究院的执行总监理这样看待这个海底博物馆：“如果它范围不广，不至于极大地侵害天然珊瑚礁，那么它对保护天然珊瑚礁就是是有帮助的，因为它提供了另一个潜水地点。”
Others are more skeptical, saying that the museum serves more as a tourist attraction and that the reef is harmed more by pollution from the resorts and by climate change than by visitors to it.
其他一些科学家则对此持怀疑态度，说这个博物馆的主要用途还是吸引游客，因为对珊瑚礁伤害最大的是度假地的污染和气候变化(climate change)，而不是参观者。
“It is neither a benefit nor a harm to the reef, but I do not see it as a conservation project,” said Roberto Iglesias Prieto, a scientist in Cancún who studies the reef.
“它对珊瑚礁既没益处，也没害处，但是我不认为它是一个自然保护项目，”坎昆的一位研究珊瑚礁的科学家说。
Mr. Taylor, a 37-year-old Briton, was drawn to Mexico after an earlier project of 65 works off the Caribbean island of Grenada got a lot of attention.
Mr. Taylor37岁，是个英国人，他之前在加勒比海格林纳达岛附近放置的65件作品引起了很多关注，所以被请到了墨西哥。
He grew up in England, Spain and Malaysia, where he developed a passion for diving and coral reefs, and he was trained at the Camberwell College of Arts in London.
他在英国、西班牙和马来西亚长大，在马来西亚迷上了潜水和珊瑚礁，曾在伦敦的坎贝威尔艺术学院(Camberwell College of Arts)接受培训。
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