This large-scale ceramic coral reef sculptural installation is the second in Courtney Mattison's Our Changing Seas series (the first is at AAAS headquarters in Washington DC). This piece was completed in September 2013 and is now on permanent display at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center's Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research in South Florida. It stands about nine feet tall, three by six feet wide and is entirely covered in hand-sculpted and glazed ceramic corals, sponges and other reef-dwelling invertebrates from Western Atlantic and Caribbean coral reefs. The piece depicts a 360° transition from a healthy, vibrant coral reef to a bleached and algal-dominated one and back again to illustrate the human-caused threats reefs face with a sense of hope for recovery. It took a year and a half, but it's finally finished! A big thank-you to the NSU Oceanographic Center for commissioning this project!!
Nova Southeastern University’s new Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research opened on September 27th, 2012 at the NSU Oceanographic Center campus and is the only research facility in the nation dedicated entirely to reef ecosystem science. The Oceanographic Center is home to several institutes including The National Coral Reef Institute (NCRI), which was established by Congress in 1998 to assess, monitor, and restore coral reefs through research and education. As one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s external Coral Reef Institute partners, NCRI has long supported NOAA’s mission by providing outstanding scientific research to support federal, state, and local management and conservation in providing local, regional, national, and international research products that can offer solutions to the coral reef crisis. The LEED Silver-certified Center of Excellence provides both urgently needed state-of-the-art research facilities and consequently expanded scientific capacity (NSU, 2011).
