The OceanX Education Artist Residency

Art has always helped society interpret what it cannot yet fully see. 

The ocean remains one of the most complex and least understood systems on Earth. As new discoveries emerge from its depths, artists are uniquely positioned to translate data, exploration, and scientific insight into forms that expand public understanding. When culture engages with science at depth, knowledge travels farther. 

OceanX Education's first artist residency, piloted in partnership with Pioneer Works, is built on that premise. It supports mid- to senior-level artists whose practices intersect with immersive media, artificial intelligence, XR (Extended Reality including Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality), performance, and digital systems. These creators are already shaping contemporary culture and are prepared to engage rigorously with ocean research. Each of these artists brings a rigorous practice to this residency, as well as a deep desire to help audiences embody new knowledge in order to feel more connected to the ocean and its protection.  

Two Distinct Pathways 

Within OceanX Education, the Fellowship develops early-career ocean professionals and builds pathways into science, conservation, and storytelling. 

The Residency serves a different function. 

It is designed for established practitioners whose work influences institutions, audiences, and discourse. Rather than preparing individuals to enter the field, the Residency invites artists to extend ocean science into their own disciplines. One program builds the pipeline. The other expands the cultural reach of ocean knowledge. 

Grounded in Research. Built for Depth. 

Residents receive direct access to OceanX research, data, and scientific expertise. Independent projects are developed in collaboration with OceanX Education teams and supported by dedicated stipends and production resources. 

This work is rooted in sustained engagement with scientific discovery. Through the curatorial rigor of Pioneer Works and the scientific depth of OceanX, the Residency establishes a serious platform for interdisciplinary collaboration. 

Public presentations may extend to major institutions and international convenings, reinforcing that art–science collaboration can operate at the highest levels of cultural discourse. 

2026 Residents 

LaJuné McMillian integrates performance, extended reality, and physical computing to explore communication, movement, and technology. Their practice investigates Blackness, embodiment, and digital systems. Through the Residency, LaJuné will engage ocean data as spatial material, examining how immersive environments can translate complex marine systems into shared experience. 

Memo Akten and Katie Hofstadter, collaborating as Superradiance, explore the entanglements of artificial intelligence, embodiment, and ecological systems. Akten’s background in AI and speculative simulation, paired with Hofstadter’s work in public art and technologically mediated imagination, positions their collaboration at the intersection of data, perception, and collective consciousness. Within the Residency, they will examine ocean data systems as living infrastructures that shape how knowledge is generated and understood. 

Matt McCorkle, an Emmy-nominated digital artist and systems thinker, builds large-scale immersive environments that merge spatial audio, ecology, and interactive storytelling. His practice expands how audiences experience complex natural systems. Through the Residency, he will explore how ocean discovery can be translated into immersive, experiential worlds. 

Expanding the Cultural Field of Ocean Knowledge 

The OceanX Education Residency is a long-term investment in cultural infrastructure. It is designed to build sustained, rigorous collaborations that embed ocean science within contemporary artistic practice and institutional dialogue. 

When artists engage deeply with science, new forms of understanding emerge. When culture carries discovery forward, its reach expands. 

The impact begins with connection. By encountering ocean research and data through immersive, embodied, and imaginative forms, audiences gain access to knowledge in ways that are intuitive as well as intellectual. Complex systems become tangible. Distant ecosystems feel immediate. 

From that connection grows stewardship. With a clearer understanding of how ocean systems function, and of how human actions shape them, audiences are better equipped to see their own role in the ocean’s future. The Residency is designed not only to extend the cultural reach of ocean science, but to deepen public engagement with its protection.