Best of the Maldives: Largest Sand Sculptures – Sun Siyam Iru Fushi

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Sun Siyam Iru Veli - sand sculptures

Growing up in a beach town (Ipswich, Massachusetts) that features a famous sand-castle contest (which we entered one year building a scene from “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”), I love a bit of creative sand construction. With this post, I’ve added a new tag for “Sand Sculpture”, and these creations Sun Siyam Iru Fushi are literally the biggest yet. In fact, the biggest in the world.

  • “Renowned sand artist Nathaniel Alapide, Guinness World Record holder of the largest sand image, astounded guests with his latest masterpiece created at the breathtaking Sun Siyam Iru Fushi. Alapide, known for his intricate and mesmerizing sand art creations.”

Drone-shot Insta-ready as well…

Sun Siyam Iru Veli - sand sculpture 2

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Best of the Maldives: Welcome Drink Sculpture – Sun Siyam Vilu Reef

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Vilu Reef - frog fish 4

The Maldivian “welcome drink” is one of the first rituals which make you feel that you have arrived at a distinctive paradise and an exotic tropical experience awaits you. Typically, the refreshment is some tropical fruit juice or a freshly hacked coconut’s contents. Sometimes the drink is a bit more elaborate…but none so extravagantly so as Sun Siyam Vilu Reef ‘s frog fish passion fruit sculpture (see photo). We’ve seen all sort of melon sculptures, but never a passion fruit. And all sorts of concocted creatures, but never a frog fish (whose likeness was quite impressive).

Sun Siyam Vilu Reef - greeting drink

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Best of the Maldives: Drift Wood – Baglioni

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Baglioni - drift wood b

Driftwood is alluring in its own right. The original tree shaped and coloured by months at sea. So Baglioni’s reception centerpiece – an expansive piece of driftwood is as captivating as it is apropos. The behemoth was washed up on the shores of the island with the 2004 Tsunami.

The tsunami had a transformative impact on the Maldives. Not just their geography and so the losses suffered in human life and property, but also in the very politics of the nation. So many resources were required for the reconstruction effort that the Maldives had to turn to global funders who put as a requirement for their aid and loans and number of radical reforms in the government and economy. Many resorts feature memorials to this dramatic part of their history several of this I’ve featured here, so I have added a “Tsunami” tag to assemble them all

Baglioni - drift wood a

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Best of the Maldives: Jellyfish Sculpture – Soneva Jani

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Soneva Jani - jellyfish

Happy Halloween! While resorts are adorning their properties with spooky décor for the occasion, Soneva Jani’s main restaurant is permanently bedecked with a hauntingly alluring mobile of ghostly jellyfish. This post is the latest instalment in its catalogue of suspended sea life sculptures so I’ve added the handy “Mobile” tag for them.

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Best of the Maldives: Diving Sculpture Feature – Joali

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Misha Kahn Underwater Coral Sculpture Garden from No LaB on Vimeo.

Joali not only features art immersion at its museum quality property, but it also features immersion art. Creative commissions are found not only in every nook and cranny of the island, but also deep under the water of the resort house reef. A number of resorts have installed underwater sculptures and other items of visual interest in the lagoon for snorkeling exploration, Joali is the first diver-oriented installation. Visitors can descend 12 metres to enjoy Misha Kahn’s subaquatic art:

  • Misha Kahn couldn’t hold himself back to create his biggest scale work for Joali Maldives. He has worked in the island with his team and the locals to create the under the water coral sculpture garden using mosaic combinations of vibrant and pale colored tiles in order to reflect the coral bleaching occurring in the oceans.

Joali - underwater sculpture

Joali - underwater sculpture 2

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Best of the Maldives: Plastic Art – Conrad Maldives

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Conrad Rangali - plastic art

Conrad Maldives is putting the “up” into upcycling plastic with its jellyfish chandelier. The article “How A Hotel In the Maldives Is Fighting Plastic Pollution” describes this and a number of other initiatives (stay tuned) the resort is undertaking to raise awareness of plastic pollution and to minimise it from their property:

  • “The most visible symbol of the hotel’s commitment to the cause can be found inside Rangali Bar. Dangling from the wood ceiling of the open-air bar is a massive jellyfish. At first glance, it could be mistaken for a Chihuly, with its long, translucent tentacles resembling blue-tinted glass. But the sculpture comes from eco artist John K. Melvin, who was commissioned to create the site-specific piece at the resort. Melvin, whose work has appeared in places like Puerto Rico’s Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, spent a six-week residency collecting more than 5,000 plastic bottles from three islands in the Maldives, sculpting and then stringing them with coconut rope, steel cable, wire and other materials. The upcycled work is titled EvoGyre, a portmanteau of “evolution” and “gyre,” which is a circular ocean current formed by wind patterns and the forces resulting from the Earth’s rotation. Plastic gets stuck in these vortexes.”

Creative approaches to eco-sustainability are looking up at Rangali.

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Best of the Maldives: Underwater Sculpture Gallery – Sirru Fen Fushi

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Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 1

International Sculpture Day today. And new resort Sirru Fen Fushi is launching a world class sculpture exhibit with the most distinctively Maldivian twist – it is underwater.

  • “The sculptural installation on Sirru Fen Fushi will offer visitors a unique, cultural eco-art attraction whilst creating the foundations of an artificial reef to enhance the underwater ecosystem. The centre piece will be the Coral Cube, the worlds first semi submerged art space, a portal to the underwater realm offering visitors ephemeral encounters with the natural beauty beneath the water’s surface, delivering an other worldly experience that illustrates the connectivity of man with nature, a hybrid organic form in harmony with its surroundings, a seamless link between the land and the ocean, combining two disparate wonders, one created by man and one designed by nature.”

This creative installation is another gratifying “Finally Seen” for me as I first suggested such an exhibition 4 years ago with Part 4 of my “Not Seen Yet” series (#7).

Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 3

Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 2

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Best of the Maldives: Staff Art – Amilla Fushi

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Amilla Fushi - garden 2

  • “What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.” – David Hockney

At most resorts, the staff give at bit of themselves every day to make the visit by the guests memorable and distinctive. At Amilla Fushi, this investment is expressed indelibly in a unique exhibition of creativity and personality.

The Mystique Garden is a chef’s garden where you can enjoy special meals prepared and served for you al fresco. But your nook is more than the lush greenery of an equatorial paradise. It accented by a collection of striking art works suspended in the tropical canopy. These pieces are the works and gifts of the resort staff themselves.

When the property was near completion and the new team of staff being assembled, the management got everyone together and presented them with a challenge to design and produce pieces of sculpture to adorn the Mystique Garden. The resort provided any tools and materials that they needed. The staff were assembled into department teams as the project was a way to bring the group close together prior to the opening with a focus on thrilling the impeding guests with something out of the ordinary. The teams worked for over a month and the top pieces were selected for inclusion in this open air gallery. The pieces featured and the teams that created them are…

  • Chandelier by Management
  • Morovian Star by Engineering
  • Peace Sign by the Spa
  • Dodecahedron by the Front Office
  • Silver Mobile by Recreation

I’ve been to lots of chef gardens in the Maldives (in fact, with this post, I am adding a new tag for them “Chef Garden”, but Amilla’s is a bit extra-magical, surrounded not just by the natural beauty of the location, but also by these inspired pieces which offer a personal welcome from the hearts, minds and souls of the resort team to their guests.

Amilla Fushi - garden 1

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