Underwater Museum of Art

Public Spaces A Subaquatic Art Gallery

THE UNDERWATER MUSEUM OF ART OFFERS A UNIQUE ATTRACTION ALONG 30A

BY TONYA J. PIPPIN, LUXURY PROPERTY SPECIALIST WITH CORCORAN REVERIE

America’s first Underwater Museum of Art (UMA), created in 2018, lies in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Grayton Beach State Park on 30A in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

In 2018, Time Magazine named it one of the World’s Greatest Places. The permanent sculpture exhibit, which lies at a depth of 58 feet, is the perfect blend of creativity, eco-tourism and environmentalism. Within an hour of deployment, schools of fish were seen swarming the sculptures.

This public space, which is less than a mile off the South Walton coast, is free of charge for all visitors and was formed in a collaboration between the Cultural Arts Alliance (CAA) of Walton County and the South Walton Artificial Reef Association (SWARA), with initial support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alys Foundation and Visit Florida.

Each year since 2018, a juried selection of sculptures, created by artists throughout the world, are added to the UMA. The featured artworks form an artificial reef which will attract marine life, divers, boaters and kayakers for years to come.

There are currently 25 sculptures on the permitted one-acre patch of seabed. In the summer of 2022, ten additional sculptures will be added. This eco-tourism exhibit will not only attract divers and art lovers from around the globe, it will also create a habitat for local marine life as well as provide marine scientists,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SPRING RUN MEDIA The Underwater Museum of Art is free and open to the public, conveniently located just a mile off of the South Walton coast.

A juried selection of sculptures are added to the museum each year. This year, 10 new artworks will be added to the underwater exhibit.

ecologists and students an opportunity to study marine life within the Gulf of Mexico’s artificial reef ecosystem.

“The purpose is for them to become part of the environment, enhancing it and stimulating the ecosystem,” said Jennifer Steele, the executive director of the CAA of Walton County.

For anyone wanting an up close and personal tour of the museum, it can be accessed by scuba diving. For those not scuba certified, you can access the museum by snuba, which is the perfect cross between snorkeling and scuba diving. While breathing through an easy-to-use regulator that is connected to an air supply that floats comfortably at the water’s surface, snuba allows you to explore a 3D underwater world you simply can’t enjoy through snorkeling alone.

If you would rather not dive “under the sea” to tour the sculptures, videos and pictures of each piece of art can be found on the Underwater Museum of Art website, umafl.org/media-gallery.

The art is diverse and ranges from a skull, deer, pineapple, mermaid, octopus, cactus, dandelion, diamond, honeycomb, seahorse, guitar, shipwreck, seashell and many other unique expressions.

In 2017, the CAA and SWARA sent out an international “call to artists” for consideration in the 2018 inaugural undersea installation. Four options of art media were allowed for the sculptures: concrete, limestone, stainless steel and aluminum.

Each sculpture featured in the museum is attached to a base. Combined, each installation weighs approximately 6,000 pounds. Seven sculpture designs were initially selected by a jury and included local artists such as Justin Gaffery and Allison Wickey. New sculptures are added each year. 

An international “call to artists,”

for anyone interested in submitting sculptures for consideration to the juried art exhibit, can be found at umafl.org. For more information on the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, visit their website at www.culturalartsalliance.com

 GPS coordinates of the center of the museum (SWARA Skull) are Latitude N 30 18.754 Longitude W 86 09.522