Sharks are as fascinating as they are misunderstood. Thanks to their large razor-sharp teeth and their prominence in horror movies—Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) being the most famous example—it’s easy to see why they’ve developed a killer reputation, despite not actually being responsible for all that many human deaths.
But while some people are terrified of sharks, others have been inspired to create artworks of the big toothy fish. So in honor of Shark Week 2026—which starts later this week on July 26—here are six unusual shark statues and sculptures around the world that have made waves.
- Sharnana // Australia
- Sunken Shark Movie Prop // Switzerland
- The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living // England and New York
- Chompie // Maryland
- The Headington Shark // England
- Sharks! // England
Sharnana // Australia
For a few weeks in 2024, visitors to Sydney’s Bondi Beach could view a great white shark bursting out of a peeled banana. Created by Drew McDonald, the strange sculpture—appropriately titled Sharnana—was displayed as part of the Sculpture by the Sea art exhibition and won both the Allens People’s Choice Award and the Kids’ Choice Prize.
The shark-banana hybrid is made out of recycled plastic, steel, and calcium carbonate and is a little over seven feet long and four feet tall. So why did McDonald want to merge the fish and fruit in the first place?
“To stop, admire and question the reality of a shark coming out of a peeled banana is to question what it means to exist on a rock floating in space,” the artist explains. “I’ve always seen life as absurd. I want my art to be absurd too, but in a joyous, engaging way.”
Although Sharnana only enjoyed a brief stint by the sea, the statue can still be viewed at Moon Mountain Sanctuary—a farm in Queensland for rescue horses that is also an open-air art gallery.
Sunken Shark Movie Prop // Switzerland
The world’s oceans are home to all manner of scary things—from creepy deep sea creatures to an eerie sunken cemetery—but lakes can also hide terrifying objects in their depths. For instance, from the shore, Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland looks serene, but anyone who dives beneath the surface will find a terrifying 20-foot-long shark statue lying in wait.
Although the shark looks fairly cartoonish on a second glance, seeing teeth that big emerge out the darkness must be a chilling experience. The shark has resided at the bottom of the Swiss lake for almost two decades, winding up there after being used as a prop in the short film Choc Au Lac! (2007). Presumably, the movie’s crew decided to just leave the shark behind after filming had wrapped—much to the delight of some thrill-seeking divers.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living // England and New York
Damien Hirst was launched to fame in the 1990s thanks to an art series that utilized dead animals—the most famous of which was a 14-foot-long tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde in a glass display case.
Titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, the artwork cost £50,000 ($67,000) to create, with the shark itself costing £6,000 ($8,000). The tiger shark had been caught off the coast of Australia’s Queensland, with Hirst requesting that the fisherman catch him a shark “big enough to eat you.”
The artwork was first displayed in 1991 in London’s Saatchi Gallery, but the shark soon started to decay (Hirst thought that the gallery’s curators had added bleach to the tank). In 1993, the shark’s skin was removed and fit over a fiberglass mold, but Hirst was unhappy with the result: “It didn’t look as frightening… You could tell it wasn’t real. It had no weight.”
In 2006, a new shark was caught and a more thorough preservation process was used to ensure that it wouldn’t rot like its predecessor. This version was displayed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2007 and 2010.
Hirst also scarified a few other sharks to star in similar artworks, including a great white shark and a basking shark. Understandably, this drew the criticism of animal rights groups, who estimate that he’s killed almost 1 million animals (a number which includes insects) for his art.
Chompie // Maryland
In 2006, the Discovery Channel decided to celebrate Shark Week in a very special way: by decorating their headquarters in Maryland with a massive inflatable shark. Named Chompie, the five pieces of the colossal sea creature are arranged to make it look like it’s swimming through the building; its head is at the front, there are pectoral fins on each side, a dorsal fin on the roof, and a tail at the back. From nose to tail, the shark measures a staggering 446 feet.
Chompie has been hung on the building a few times over the years, but it’s quite the process to get the huge fish in place. While the pieces are being installed, they have to be constantly inflated—which takes 10 air blowers to achieve. Chompie hasn’t made an appearance since 2012—for the 25th anniversary of Shark Week—but hope springs eternal every summer when the iconic week-long TV event rolls around.
The Headington Shark // England
The Headington Shark made quite a splash when it was installed in a quiet suburb of Oxford in 1986. The 25-foot-long shark—made of fiberglass and steel—looks like its diving headfirst through the roof of an ordinary house, inevitably leading to it becoming known as the Shark House.
The roof-top sculpture was conceived by Bill Heine and created by sculptor John Buckley. Heine’s son and the current homeowner, Magnus Hanson-Heine, explains that the shark was designed as a piece of protest art. It was installed on August 9—the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki—in opposition to America’s recent bombing of Libya.
The shark was also purposefully installed without planning permission from the local council. “They had done that in part so as to make this case that really the council shouldn’t be deciding what kind of art people were and weren’t allowed to see,” explains Hanson-Heine.
As expected, the council immediately attempted to get the sculpture removed, but Heine was a lawyer and after six years he won the court case and got to keep his shark.
The battle over the Headington Shark didn’t end there though. By 2022, the council had come around on the merits of the marine predator and decided to add it to the Oxford Heritage Asset Register—which Hanson-Heine wasn’t happy about, stating that it “goes against the fundamental point” of the anti-authoritarian art piece.
Sharks! // England
Antepavilion is an arts and architecture charity based in London that has been caught up in numerous legal battles with Hackney London Borough Council over the lack of planning permission for its artworks. In 2020, Antepavilion held a competition for an artwork that commented on the legal trouble and the winner was a sculpture titled Sharks! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name).
Designed by architect Jaimie Shorten and inspired by the Headington Shark, Sharks! is a collection of five life-sized fiberglass sharks that look like they’re jumping headfirst out of the water. When the sharks were being installed on Regent’s Canal outside Antepavilion’s Hoxton warehouse, Hackney Council got an injunction to stop the charity and so only four sharks ever made it onto the water.
A legal battle then ensued over Sharks!—which was partly the point of the piece—and it still hasn’t been resolved. The sharks were removed for a period and then put back out on the water—this time outside Islington Boat Club—before being removed again. As of February 2026, a singular shark floats outside Antepavilion’s dockside and only time will tell whether the other four will get to join it.
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