We have been anticipating the arrival of Miami Beach’s ReefLine project for some time now. News first broke around the time of the pandemic and the project’s future seemed in jeopardy.
The 7-mile-long underwater sculpture park with access for scuba divers and snorkelers is a project that is certainly interesting for us and for many in the South Florida area.
Some time ago, the first phase of the installation, a set of sculpted automobiles was displayed on the beach. Dubbed The Order of Importance, by Leandro Erlich, this sculpture of cars seemingly stopped in traffic will become one of the first underwater exhibits.
We recently attended the Miami Art Week installation on Miami Beach next to the Great Elephant Migration exhibit, which showed a miniature version of prototypes for what is intended as phase 2 of the project. The Reef Star sculpture set by Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre, are star-shaped artificial corals that will be submerged as part of the reef line project.
We met the artistic director Ximena Caminos at the Rescue a Reef Ocean Optimism even back in January 2024 and it is nice to see the project advancing and coming to fruition.
I can’t wait to go diving on some of these beautiful sculptures and it’s sure to be an exciting tourist draw for Miami. And it’s also nice to have these artificial reefs as habitats for the marine creatures that are finding less and less reef out there to make their homes.