Dive into Atlantis: Magical photo exhibition 145 ft under sea

Photographer Andreas Franke artwork aboard the sunken Vandenburg off the Key West, Florida has created a surreal world under the ocean and invites viewers to a journey into the land of imagination.

Titled 'The Vandenberg: Life Below the Surface' the exhibition tends to make one feel, What if Atlantis, the famed sunken island could still exist beneath? What if humans could live under sea?

The subjects chosen and portrayed are daily and ordinary lives but superimposed against the eerie and iconic imageries of the fallen 'Vandenburg', it transports the viewers into a fictional world altogether, the Daily Mail reported.

So, there is ballerinas en barre, young lovers at the cinema, a patient being wheeled along by a nurse, or young children playing, but they all seem to belong to a mythical, magical water kingdom, exotically imagined by Franke's genius.

 

Pure magic and dreamworld-like. As Franke himself says the photographs show "mystified scenes of the past that play in a fictional space."

"They are dreamworlds where you can get lost or that you can identify with. This makes a new and unexpected atmosphere," the Daily Mail quoted the photographer as saying.

So, how did it all begin? Armed with his camera, Franke dove down to the 'Vandenberg', a United States missile tracking ship that sunk in 2009 and used the spectacular images he took as a canvas for a surreal civilisation that never existed.

Under the sea, adequate care has been taken to save the artwork as well the sunken naval heritage.

The art is encased between sheets of Plexiglas with a stainless steel frame and a silicone seal keeps the water out. Strong magnets ensure the images stay attached to the walls and do not damage the piece of American Naval history.

So, don your diving gears and plunge into the magical world and drench your curiosity with unlikely residents of this unlikely world.