AltaSea: The Beacon – December 13, 2022

Academy Award Winning Director James Cameron’s Historic Mariana Trench Submersible and Exhibit Coming to AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles

Titanic and Avatar Director’s exhibit celebrates the 10th anniversary of his record-breaking dive into the Mariana Trench. Exhibit will join Titanic Discoverer, Dr. Bob Ballard, at AltaSea.

AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles announced that Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning director James Cameron’s latest exhibit, PRESSURE: James Cameron into the Abyss, will be on display at AltaSea’s campus starting in Summer 2023. The exhibit will feature the Deepsea Challenger, the nearly 12-ton deep-diving submersible that Cameron piloted to the bottom of the deepest-known point on Earth: Challenger Deep.

In 2012, Cameron became the first-ever solo diver to go into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The trip, taking Cameron nearly 7 miles under the surface, is a watershed moment in deep sea exploration and was the first dive to film the seafloor and collect samples. The Mariana Trench is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth.

PRESSURE: James Cameron into the Abyss celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the dive and will allow viewers to accompany Cameron on his historic trip, with footage and artifacts from the dive. The exhibit includes an 11-minute 3D film of the seafloor and ocean creatures. The 24-foot-tall submersible that Cameron manned will be on display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles until February 2023 before moving permanently to AltaSea.

“James Cameron is not only one of the greatest filmmakers ever, but he is also a leader in ocean exploration and preservation. We could not be more thrilled to welcome his PRESSURE exhibit to AltaSea,” said AltaSea President and CEO Terry Tamminen. “His work has continued to push the envelope of what is possible in deep sea exploration, and he has inspired generations to dive deeper into ocean science.”

AltaSea, the nation’s blue economy hub located on 35 acres of wharf at the Port of Los Angeles, is no stranger to deep sea exploration. One of their anchor tenants is famed oceanographer and explorer Dr. Robert Ballard’s Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) and the research vessel Nautilus, which docks at AltaSea. Dr. Ballard is best known for his historic discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and many other shipwrecks around the world. OET has plans to build a 10,000 square foot interactive research and educational center at AltaSea.

“A big part of our responsibility is as storytellers, not just to do the exploration, but when we come back, to tell the story of the science and what we discovered, what we saw with our own eyes,” said James Cameron on Sunday, December 11, 2022, at PRESSURE’s debut event at the Natural History Museum. “For me, it’s not just about setting records, it’s not just about my own curiosity. It’s about enabling the curiosity for science. And that’s always been my goal.”