Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA, Underwater Museum of Art)

MUSA, the Museo Subacuático de Arte (Underwater Museum of Art) is located just off Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo. It is a stretch of seabed where sculptures from a number of artists stand.

These sculptures create surreal scenes that can be explored and admired on snorkeling and scuba diving tours. Are you up for heading down into the depths of the Caribbean?

What Is There to See in the Museo Subacuático de Arte?

The museum is made up of around 500 individual sculptures, clustered in approximately 30 installations. The groups are laid out in three galleries: Salón Manchones, Salón Nizuc, and Salón Punta Sam. Overall, the museum covers some 4,521 square feet.

What makes this museum truly unique is the way it was designed to interact with nature. Over the years, the installations have become artificial reefs, colonized by all kinds of underwater life.

This interplay lends the museum a ghostly air, its sculptures blending into coral, algae, fish, and the blue sea. Every time you visit MUSA, you will see a different museum as it is constantly changing.

A crowd reacting, cars, a man sitting in front of a television, gigantic heads and hands—these are a few of the sights to be found under the sea.

There are four ways to explore the Underwater Museum of Art:

• Glass-bottomed boat tour, if you don’t want to get wet.
• Snorkel tour, spending 4 hours and 30 minutes in MUSA.
• Scuba diving tour, lasting 5 hours. There are options for those who aren’t certified scuba divers.
• Jungle tour, which includes a tour of the mangrove forest before snorkeling through the MUSA.

MUSA’s History

The Underwater Museum of Art opened its doors in 2010, as a collaboration between the Parque Nacional Costa Occidental (Western Coast National Park), Asociados Náuticos de Cancún (Nautical Associates of Cancún), and Jason deCaires Taylor, the artist and sculptor. The idea came about as a solution to counteract the deterioration of the region’s coral reefs. More specifically, the idea was to supply the area with artificial reefs while simultaneously creating a tourist attraction.

In the beginning, it was just Taylor’s sculptures. The British artist created works with a special material fostering coral growth and laid the foundation for other artists to add their works. Over the years, artists such as Elier Amado Gil, Karen Salinas, Rodrigo Quiñones, Roberto Díaz, and Salvador Quiroz have added to the museum’s collection.

With an average 400,000 visitors per year, the MUSA is one of the planet’s most visited underwater attractions.