Paul Hunt wants to bring the threatened coral reefs to Brooklyn, encourage marine conservation, and foster of a love of the ocean.  To do this he will create a multimedia installation art project called “Sea Creatures.”  

"I feel there's an urgent need to share this beautiful landscape before it's gone," he said in press release announcing his need for funding. "Since 1980, more than 30% of all the coral reefs in the world, including 50% of the coral reefs in the Caribbean, have vanished. Coral reefs take thousands of years to form, yet are rapidly disappearing."

When completed the work will total 1,083 feet in length and will depict over twenty coral reef locations with individual paintings each almost fifty feet wide and slightly over a foot high. This height has been specifically chosen to simulate the level of a view a diver would see through their scuba mask while floating approximately two or three feet away from a reef.

The use of underwater video footage, audio of sea sounds like boats passing and “animals crackling” -not a sound I knew marine creatures produced- and special effects lighting will give visitors the full experience of being immersed with a reef. Hunt is not stopping there: he plans to make the indoor air temperature fluctuate to mimic what a diver feels when underwater.

Hunt will collect marine debris the way normal tourists gather sea shells, from beaches, coral reefs, and the ocean floor. The trash will be used to create the installation’s floor and will be piled in tile ripple formation reminiscent of how sea floor sand is naturally shaped by the ocean currents. I hope the floor doesn’t make it difficult to walk through the installation.
 
The plan is to collect the equivalent amount of one forty foot shipping container to illustrate how much litter is ending up in our ocean and affecting marine habitats.

Hunt is a scuba enthusiast and long distance open water swimmer which means he will be traveling to the locations in the Caribbean, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Bermuda that he intends on  recreating depict to conduct research.

He is accepting donations for a piece of the project via a Kickstarter account and his goal is $10,000 which he hopes to have by the end of the month. The remaining estimated cost of the entire project is a minimum of $176,000. The first exhibit is scheduled to open by November 2014 in a yet unnamed gallery or aquarium.

For more information about the project please visit reefpaintings.com.