sparked controversy when first revealed last September<\/a>, with some critics describing it as \u201ccreepy and disturbing\u201d and claiming it resembled a dead body.<\/p>\nBut others say the figure of the woman is beautiful and ethereal.<\/p>\n
Mr Taylor created it to replace a pair of his previous figures, which became damaged and broken.<\/p>\n
![\"Jason](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg)
Jason deCaires Taylor’s ‘Alluvia’ illuminated in the river Stour in Canterbury<\/p>\n
It is inspired by Shakespeare\u2019s Ophelia from Hamlet and was commissioned by the Canterbury Commemoration Society.<\/p>\n
A recent photo posted on social media sparked numerous comments, with the work clearly still dividing opinion.<\/p>\n
But some are concerned about its apparent deteriorating state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just about visible due to neglect of cleaning the moss etc – shame,\u201d says Shirley Harper.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needs cleaning, she’s beautiful when she lights up at night,\u201d adds Vicky Watson.<\/p>\n
The eerily-beautiful new Alluvia created by Jason de Caires Taylor in the Stour in Canterbury<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw it today and wasn’t really impressed, as it’s covered in algae,\u201d says Tracy Seal.<\/p>\n
The Canterbury Commemoration Society told KentOnline the sculpture is now in the care of Canterbury City Council.<\/p>\n
But the group has bought a broom and staff at Canterbury Punting have now brushed her off, as requested by the society.<\/p>\n
The sculptor, however, says the intention is for the figure to be \u201cleft to her own devices\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike all of my sculptures, it will go through changes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The Alluvia underwater sculpture in the river Stour in Canterbury has been given a clean<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will disappear and reappear at various times of the year, like my previous works.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brown patina it has at the moment will change on its own accord.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the city council said: \u201cAlluvia was a gift to the city and as such is now our responsibility.<\/p>\n
“We do not intend to put in place a regular cleaning programme but will carry out an annual condition check.<\/p>\n
“Discussion online has seen views ranging from suggesting we should clean her regularly to telling us to leave her be and let the natural world do its thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, we fully accept we are in a no-win situation but are happy with the approach we have decided to take.<\/p>\n
“A new, permanent plaque will be installed at the site in the next few weeks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A unique underwater sculpture in a Kent river should be left to \u2018weather\u2019 with the flow of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,606,4022,77,609,495,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-30236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-canterbury","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-human-interest","14":"tag-kent","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114359044921834804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}