As Art Basel fans descend on Miami Beach, the City of basking in the glow of an experiment in art and ocean conservation: a new underwater sculpture park called ReefLine, which is being installed just off the coast, with the goal of rebuilding coral habitat while offering a unique public art experience.
The project’s debut installation — Concrete Coral by artist Leandro Erlich — consists of 22 life-size concrete cars arranged underwater like, what else, an Art Basel traffic jam. Sunk about 780 feet off South Beach, roughly 20–25 feet below the surface, the cars were lowered over several days in October.
The concrete sculptures are built from marine-grade, pH-neutral concrete designed to host coral growth. Scientists plan to seed the cars with corals cultivated in a nearby lab, specifically strains that survived 2023’s bleaching event. The project uses a technology called “Coral Lok.” Over time, the sculptures should become a hybrid reef, support marine life and helping rebuild a portion of Florida’s damaged reef system…