uncommissioned: The Reef of Future Ancestors

Artist: Carolina Aranibar-Fernandez (BOL)

The Reef of Future Ancestors (2026)

Installation

The first phase of The Reef of Future Ancestors focused on developing and testing a series of floating prototypes that will inform a future large-scale underwater/floating installation. Conceived as a floating constellation of spheres, the project imagines the ocean as a cultivation nursery where matter, memory, and life continuously regenerate. The larger vision is to create a temporary public artwork that functions not only as a visual intervention but also as a restorative environment for marine species. By creating floating structures that provide shelter, surfaces for attachment, and spaces for ecological coexistence, the project explores how art can participate in processes of care and regeneration within aquatic ecosystems. Central to the project is the idea that once the installation is placed in the water, marine species become active collaborators and, in many ways, the owners of the work. As algae, corals, microorganisms, and other aquatic life attach to and inhabit the structures, they transform the installation over time, shaping its form and meaning through their presence. To begin this research, I developed six prototype “stellar seeds” using coconuts, ceramic tiles, foam, string, found shells, and rocks, tested a raku ceramic firing. These forms were designed to test different relationships between buoyancy, weight, balance, and movement, allowing me to better understand how future spheres might float while supporting underwater components.

The prototypes were tested in the waters of Blue Room and Director's Bay in Curaçao, where I observed their flotation, stability, and interaction with ocean currents. This phase was essential for understanding how the spheres move collectively and individually, revealing the dynamic behaviors that will shape the final installation. This phase established an important foundation for the next stage of development, which will focus on research of materials and collaborating for testing these underwater for safety and healthy contribution to water species and then scaling the work into a larger, more permanent floating ecosystem composed of spheres and underwater structures that function as habitats and infrastructures for nourishment and restoration. As marine life gradually occupies and transforms the installation, the work shifts from a human-made artwork into a shared environment shaped by multiple species. The Reef of Future Ancestors ultimately proposes a speculative future ecology in which humans and marine species coexist within environments designed for cultivation rather than extraction, imagining floating nurseries where life can emerge, gather, and regenerate.