Nurturing Shores: Aesthetic Healing for Oysters and Sea Life
My oyster reef sculpture aims to educate, beautify, and rebuild coastal habitats. Made from an organic mortar, the sculpture provides an optimal surface for oyster repopulation and attracts marine life back into the area. The public arts sculpture acts as an educational tool that draws the peoples' attention to important environmental issues and her original design is optimized to offer as many benefits to coastal wildlife as possible while offering a new perspective on the underappreciated oyster.
Designed to Support Biodiversity
I designed the shape of the sculpture to maximize its role in rebuilding ecosystems. The intertidal structure has many design components meant to attract different life into the area and offer ecosystem services.
The sculpture was carefully designed to maximize its benefits by observing the animals native to the wetlands of the area. Two large hands holding a giant oyster shell depicting a wetland ecosystem (see figure) represent the importance of oysters as a keystone species that support our entire ecosystem. Placed at the mid-tide line, the sculpture would be periodically exposed and covered by water depending on the tide to provide the ideal intertidal conditions that oysters need and offer a unique perspective of the artwork. The cupped hands and oyster shell are designed to create a tide pool in the center to support other animals such as hermit crabs, anemones, mussels, and more and the shape also allows for egrets and herons to stand on it and feed. The piece is designed to be installed in a wetland by a walkable trail or viewing area so it can be observed easily from land and a sign providing information on the types of life supported by the sculpture can be placed.
ShellBond Mortar
What makes this artificial oyster bed special is the mortar used to make it. Using Shellbond (a powdered oyster shell substrate made by superheating oyster shells), menhaden oil (a fish extract), sand, and seawater, an organic mortar can be made that provides an ideal surface for oyster reproduction and naturally attracts marine life back into the area. Use of Shellbond substrate has also shown to limit toxic algal blooms that are increasingly occurring from pollution and climate change (Cahoon et al., 2011). Traditional mortars and cements used to make artificial oyster beds can leach harmful substances into the water that can affect the wildlife in the area, but ShellBond’s oyster shell mortar does not. Shellbond is nonpolar and combines with the menhaden oil to create a strong bond similar to a normal oyster shell and strength rates equivalent to a type “S” mortar (Hayes, n.d.). The unique makeup is inspired by ancient Roman and Greek seaside architecture that have stood the test of time. The use of oyster shells and sea water are the key to the strength of this mortar.
Oyster substrate is the key for oyster regrowth as oyster larvae survives best when they land on other oyster shells; it provides them with stable structure, a direct source of calcium carbonate and signals to them that the location can support oyster growth. The menhaden oil acts as an attractant for marine life and provides nutrients to help support other wildlife that thrive on or around oyster beds. The colors in the sculpture will be made using recycled glass cleaned from beaches and wetlands in the area and will reflect light as the sun shines onto it.
One of the limitations of oyster regrowth projects is the lack of substrate availability, because oyster shells are the preferred substrate for oyster regrowth (Colsoul et al., 2020). Since ShellBond can also use other shells and bones in its makeup, substrate resources are more readily available.
For more information on the mortar, visit shellbond.com
