Press Release

The City of Pompano Beach’s Public Art Program will host a dedication ceremony for two new public artworks on Friday, September 16^th, at 10:00 a.m. The beachside event will showcase a six-foot sculpture made from steel that depicts a robot scuba diver entitled Mechan H20 which is on temporary display at this beach location just south of the Fisher Family Pier. Tyler FuQua Creations, Inc. (TFC), an artist team from Portland, Oregon, was commissioned to design, fabricate, and install the sculpture. Mechan H20 is currently on display at the beach and will be at this location for one year before it is submerged into the water and attached to Lady Luck as part of the Shipwreck Park underwater art exhibition. Lady Luck is a 324-foot tanker vessel that was sunk in 2016 as an artificial reef a mile and a half off Pompano Beach’s shore. This ship is one of the biggest contributions to Florida’s artificial reef system and one of the most easily accessible major dive sites in the nation. The ship is the centerpiece of what is known as Shipwreck Park, surrounded by sixteen other existing wrecks covered with marine life.

TFC is made up of a handful of skilled and talented people, whose stated philosophy is to “build art that blows people’s minds.” Their creations have appeared in many venues, festivals and events in the U.S. and Canada, including the Smithsonian Museum: Renwick Gallery and Burning Man.

Also, at the public art beachside event will be the dedication of an impressive collection of art in public spaces: a trail comprised of 99 handmade tiles entitled Sea Life. The porcelain tiles are various sizes, depict various sea life, and stretch from the Fisher Family Pier to the Great Lawn in a scavenger hunt trail. The dedication itself will take place in front of Machan H2O followed by a public art tour of the tiles.

For more information about the City’s public artworks, visit https://www.pompanobeacharts.org/public-art.

About Shipwreck Park Pompano

Shipwreck Park is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the creation of an underwater park system establishing artificial reefs, utilizing public art to raise awareness of the need to preserve and conserve our natural coral reef system. The purpose of Shipwreck Park Pompano is to develop and protect our coral reefs. For more information on Shipwreck Park, visit https://shipwreckparkpompano.org/.

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