A selection from a larger body of images, culled from the internet using the word underwater as a search term, first presented as a slide show at Earth and Ocean Day at the National Oceanography Centre, March 09.

Ranging from 19th century illustrations of Jules Verne's 20,000.00 Leagues Under the Sea, to designs for the proposed Poseidon Mystery Island underwater resort, they chart the emergence of the undersea within visual culture, revealing an increasing drive towards its domestication and a loss of the awe and foreboding that initially characterised such images.

Also notable is the extent to which women seem to both figure within and comfortably inhabit the undersea world.