Forty-Three Thousand Three Hundred Hours of Underwater Life, on a Coca-Cola Bottle

Plastic bottle covered in barnacles, glass vitrine, wall text. Sealed and still full.

The bottle was found in the sea off Paracas, Peru, completely colonized by barnacles. A barnacle is a marine animal that lives attached to a hard surface inside a calcareous shell. It is not a mollusk, but a crustacean distantly related to crabs and shrimp.

Based on the size of the barnacles, biologists estimated the average colonization time at more than ten years. The work focused on nature’s capacity to restore and colonize damage in the environment. The title reflects the artist’s earlier estimate of the object’s underwater life.