Instead of encoding data using abstract visuals, I’ve been exploring how lived experience might communicate data in a small art commission for the exhibition Ocean, held at the Levinsky Gallery at the University of Plymouth.

Plymouth – a historic port city with deep naval roots – sits beside Plymouth Sound, the main body of water featured in the show.

In collaboration with the University’s Marine Institute and Arts University Plymouth I was invited to create a friendly, accessible work that would showcase the wonders of the Sound to a local audience who might not know much about the sea just beyond their doors. The project began with a boat trip around the Sound, where I started to wonder whether data could be used to bring the sea into the gallery itself – something visitors could walk through and experience.

I measured the gallery and calculated that 500 cubic metres of water would fit into the space. This volume was marked out using a thick blue tape line that looped across walls, windows, and doorways. I wanted to extend ideas from our book I am a book. I am a portal to the universe. but at room scale, using space and volume to create a 1:1 data encounter.

We chose Plymouth Breakwater as the source of this imagined water. I contacted researchers to gather data on its inhabitants – from phytoplankton and bacteria to red algae and sea sponges. The final piece used paint, tape, and vinyl graphics to visualise this unseen world across the walls and floor.

I’m interested in how this is a data visualisation that isn’t really visual – it combines the power of imagination with the physical environment. By walking through the space, one can imagine moving along a seabed, feeling the swirl of the sea and its inhabitants around them.