Museum of Marine Life is a series of kinetic installation art pieces by the Singapore-based multidisciplinary studio Dunes and Fishes. Museum of Marine Life, or MML for short, is the realization of a series of kinetic sculptures meant to be models of marine life. The pieces are meant to be the work of a marine biologist from the year 2222, a time when all marine life had gone extinct due to marine pollution. Hence, the studio devised the kinetic sculptures as educational tools to help the people of 2222 understand what marine life must have looked like back in the day.
The results are surreal sculptures akin to dinosaur animatronics at educational parks. The knowledge limitations of paleontologists cause their dinosaur reconstruction never to be 100 percent accurate. Similarly, the creatures in Museum of Marine Life do not precisely reflect today’s ocean life. In the same way that nuances are lost when works of literature are translated from one language to another, Museum of Marine Life gives people a chance to imagine what life would be like if they had failed to halt today’s marine biodegradation. This is why the pieces by Dunes and Fishes are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Life Below Water.
Dunes and Fishes outlined that in creating their pieces, they mainly relied on oral storytelling, asking 400 survey participants to describe today’s marine animals. Oral traditions have long persevered throughout human history, even longer than written records. Therefore, when imagining a future where marine life has been rendered obsolete, Dunes and Fishes are confident that even by then, people would still be telling stories about marine life of the past.
Globally, the marine Living Planet Index (LPI) shows 49 percent decline in populations of marine, bird, reptile and fish species. This is why the future that Museum of Marine Life imagines is not too far-fetched, making the pieces even more important as they advocate for marine life preservation and conservation in an engaging manner globally.
Museum of Marine Life by Dunes and Fishes offers a haunting glimpse into a future where marine life exists only as imperfect recreations, shaped by fading memories and incomplete knowledge. By imagining these sculptures as relics crafted in 2222, after marine extinction due to pollution, the work serves as both a cautionary tale and a call to action for preserving marine biodiversity today. Though rooted in imagination, this fictional museum engages viewers in the real need to protect our oceans.
Find out more about Museum of Marine Life and other pieces by Dunes and Fishes on their website www.dunesandfishes.com or Instagram @dunesandfishes.