MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — The first phase of what will be an underwater sculpture park took place, after 11 of 22 huge car sculptures were dropped into the ocean off the shores of South Beach.

“Geometrically, they’re like a traffic jam,” said Ximena Caminos, founder and artistic director of The Reefline. “Of very like funky swaggy cars, because on their heads they have, like, these big gorgonians that will move like this. So it will be a very happy jam.”

Fusing art and science to help bring back what was once in the ocean.

“We’re making history here right now,” said Caminos. “It’s a new symbol for the city. It’s a symbol of hope. It will make waves worldwide.”

Caminos founded The Reefline, an underwater sculpture park and hybrid reef that has now begun to take shape, just a short swim off fourth street beach.

“You can snorkel it,” Caminos said. “You can paddle board there.”

This is the start of an 11 phase project, creating a sculpture trail on the ocean floor that will run seven miles up the coast of Miami Beach.

The first work is called concrete coral: an underwater version of Leandro Erlich’s 2019 Art Basel installation of a sand sculpted traffic jam on the beach off Lincoln Road.

“These cars being submerged, they are a metaphor for how, if we keep on like behaving this way, you know, we will drive ourselves to extinction,” said Caminos.

Just last week, global headlines reported that Earth may have reached its first catastrophic climate tipping point: coral reefs around the world are dying from pollution, disease, and increasingly warmer oceans — conditions made worse by heat-trapping gases such as carbon emissions from cars.

“We’re transforming a symbol that’s doing harm right now into a symbol of hope, because the cars are studded with corals,” said Caminos.

Local and resilient soft coral are being grown in a lab in Allapatah.

“We are growing 2200 soft coral gorgonians,” said Colin Foord, marine biologist and director of science for The Reefline. “We’re able to fragment them in the lab, attach them to these coral locks. We grow them out for about four to six months so that they’re naturally grown down and happy and attached.”

The moment the state issues the permit, the outplanting of corals can begin.

“We’re going to be able to put 1000 corals on each of these cars, and it’s going to accelerate the creation of habitat,” said Foord. “It’s going to provide all kinds of homes for fish and other marine life.”

Over the years, multiple artificial reef projects like the 1000 mermaids off the coast of Hollywood Beach, almost immediately attracted life.

“Within hours of these structures being underwater, small fish are going to feel safe, and they’re going to start aggregating around these around these structures,” said Foord.

It may be art, but science is what’s driving it.

“This is just the beginning of this sculpture installation,” said Foord. “The nature and the evolution that’s going to take place is starting today.”

There are three sizes of cars: a sedan, a mid size and a compact. Each weighing between 14 to 17 tons, made from marine grade concrete and tested at University of Miami’s wind-wave-storm tank to withstand extreme weather and ocean conditions.

“Everything we use, everything we do goes through an extensive approval of an extensive research,” said The Reefline executive director Brandi Reddick.

Executive director Reddick, has been with the project from concept to development.

“It is a new site for ecotourism,“ said Reddick. ”It is using art as a tool for change using public art to create change for our environment. And that is something that’s incredibly exciting."

“It really allows Miami to be a leader in in the in the realm of coral science,” said Foord. “And the reef line is like this literal sandbox playground for us to. trial different things and try and find solutions that are not only going to restore reefs in South Florida, but around the world.”

The next 11 cars will be deployed Monday and Tuesday. However, the cars all have to settle on the ocean floor before the installation is open to swimmers and divers.

Important safety alert, The Reefline is on the other side of the safe swim zone. So it’s important to bring a dive flag in order to check it out.

The City of Miami Beach is already working on petitioning the state to move the safe swim buoys further east, in order to protect those diving the Reefline and the recently discovered neon reef, which extends through much of the site plan.

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