ArtScience Museum: The Deep (Exhibition) - Ghost of the Seas

“More men have walked on the moon than have dived to the deepest part of our oceans.”

– Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover

Bright lights were too glaring for my eyes. At the press conference, my nerves were tingling beneath my skin. Imagine the excitement that I had when I know I was about to come face to face with a creature that lives up to 4,000 metres beneath the surface. Does life even exist in such a place? And I can’t wait to dive deep in – exploring the deep and uncover the mysterious world beneath the ocean floors.

The documentary-style movie, “The Blue Planet” has once open my doors to the mysterious world as I remembered gaping at those alien creatures with translucent skin. ‘What are they?’ I thought. ‘Ghost of the seas?’

We had the honor to meet Claire Nouvian, the curator of The Deep exhibition as well as the founder and director of BLOOM Association. She personally gave us the media tour around the exhibit. The Deep was probably the most challenging yet fruitful project of hers. During the press conference, she mentioned about her collaboration with some of the world’s most respected researchers in creating an unprecedented archive of images and specimens of the creatures living in the deep zone.

The Deep was first premiered in 2007 at the National History Museum in Paris and now it has found its way to Asia, in Singapore. How could you miss this exhibit?

The Deep will feature over 40 rare and strange-looking deep-sea creatures. There are six themed zones to reveal the different depths of the seas.

Finally… right after the press conference, we entered the exhibition hall and we were enveloped in the dark, moving around like the creatures of The Deep.

The specimens as photographed below are REAL but they are dead.They had to be carefully preserved as the differences in environmental elements such as pressure, temperature, salinity and oxygen levels between deep and shallow waters make it difficult for the to survive out of the deep waters. At 4,000 metres deep, the pressure exerted by the water is equivalent to a cow standing on your thumbnail! OUCH! My thumb will probably break.

You will also notice that there is no plant life discovered at about 200 metres depth so far. The deep zone is pretty much dominated by animals.

Other than the display of 40 alien-like creatures, there is also an interactive installation by Australian artist, Lynette Wallworth. It allows visitors to use UV torches to uncover the deep-sea specimens and films of bioluminescent animals.

The Angler fish! Probably the more widely-known deep sea creature which is made popular through cartoons and films. Most of the deep-sea animals create their own light to signal mates, lure prey and communicate with their own species.

Do you now that male angler fish are really tiny and they attach themselves to the gigantic female angler fish like the ones shown above?

The specimens were stunning as I wouldn’t think I would ever get a chance to go for a deep sea exploration in a yellow submarine and submersibles just to greet these mystical creatures. True indeed, the deep zones are less widely explored as compared to space.

All the species especially the bigger fishes have brown scaly bodies which resembles like the rocks found in the seabed. What is hard for me to imagine is how such specimens could be preserved in formalin and enclosed in a large transparent glass fish tank for the public to see. What was even more of a concern in particular is how these creatures are captured and killed. That’s because if these creatures are already dead in the deep sea, it’s quite difficult for the scientists to retrieve the dead creatures, isn’t it?

But then again, in the name of science, if not for these specimens, we wouldn’t know much about the deep sea creatures and the unexplored world beneath us.