Multi-media artist Edith Skeard will be creating sound works during their term as the 2026 ONC ArtScience Fellow—a partnership program co-led by the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Ocean Networks Canada. Skeard began their four month term in May 2026.
The following article was written by John Threlfall, School of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, and republished with permission.
While they may have just graduated in June 2026 with an MFA in Visual Arts, multi-media artist Edith Skeard isn’t quite done with UVic yet. This summer, they are the latest Fine Arts grad student named to the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship program.
Skeard has been spending their summer creating sound works from ONC’s immense data collections. “I’ve been learning from their science team and engaging with the Oceans 3.0 portal,” they explain. “My primary focus has been on the relationship between seismic events and the flora and fauna of the ocean . . . . this is a really lovely opportunity to focus in on sound and the library of hydrophones ONC has.”
Given that biology underpins a lot of their practice, this ArtScience collaboration is well within Skeard’s purview. “It’s been really wonderful to learn about their work, engage with the sea and create new sound works which utilize their data,” they say. “This was a unique opportunity for deeper, focused research-making.”
Oceanic fascination
Skeard says their ONC application centred on tsunamis and earthquakes — which were present in their MFA work — and aligns perfectly with both the ecological and technological aspects of their artistic practice. Despite coming from Saskatchewan (or perhaps because of it), Skeard has always been fascinated by the ocean.
At UVic’s ONC, Skeard has been able to coordinate and perform for one of the ONC community’s lunch-and-listen sessions (where they and two Prodigy program ArtScience fellows played new compositions), as well as meet with different scientists, attend tour their Marine Technology Centre and attend an Oceans Past Symposium. Still to come in August is a site visit to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.
“My welcome has been warm and the science team has been generous with their time and knowledge sharing. I’m learning a lot and feeling immersed in the different teams and activities. This year is quite special in that there are several sound and music researchers and fellows working at ONC this summer. It’s been really interesting to hear how other folks are interpreting the data in their works.” - Edith Skeard
Skeard’s ONC listening station
New projects
At ONC’s Ocean-Climate Building headquarters (housed in UVic’s Queenswood campus), Skeard has installed a sculptural “listening station” in the lobby, which they describe as more of “a personal sound experience” than a formal installation. “It plays a continuous loop composed from ONC data and changes every month . . . the sound is deeply environmental and pulls from ONC’s vast hydrophone data. So far, folks have been really interested in listening and I’ve received good feedback on it.”
Skeard will also be participating in a concert, Abyssal Soundings: A Concert Utilizing Ocean Networks Canada Data, planned for August 16, 11AM - 1PM in UVic’s Philip T Young Recital Hall, featuring Distinguished Music alumna Eve Egoyan plus Valeria Valle, Urano Trincado, Omar Shabbar, Kieran Maraj, and Joel Ong, UVic Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Emergent Digital Art Practices — each of whom will present their own interpretations of ONC data gleaned during their tenure.
Register here for this free August 16 event!
On the rewards of donor awards
Since coming to UVic from Saskatchewan to complete their MFA in Visual Arts, Skeard has seen their creative work blossom thanks to numerous donor awards. During their two-year period of study, Skeard has received the Audain Foundation Travel Award, the Laura Carberry Scholarship in Fine Arts, the Robert W. Ford Graduate Scholarship, Audrey St. Denys & M.E. Johnson Scholarship, Helen Pitt Fine Arts Scholarship, Jessie Allan Forsyth Scholarship, John and Myrtle Tilley Graduate Scholarship, the Jeffery Rubinoff Art as a Source of Knowledge Graduate Scholarship and, most recently, the Ocean Networks Canada ArtScience Fellowship.
“I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish my studies without this generous funding, which was in large part the labour and coordination of the graduate advisors in Visual Arts,” says Skeard. “I’m very grateful to have been able to pursue my thesis with less friction and less reliance on external income. It is such a gift to be able to work freely towards research and making.”
Working mainly with sound, sculpture and drawing, Skeard uses granulation software to modify a mix of field recordings, woodwinds and voice to compose their sound. “I’m interested in the ways that the body and materials intersect, and am very open to experimenting with materials when working in the studio,” they say, explaining their work is often inspired by a fascination with labyrinths, translation, dreams, repetition and desired paths. “I often treat sound as tactile and materials as dense poetics — contemplating gestures of embodied time.”
After earning both a BA (Philosophy, Honours) and BFA (Visual Art) at the University of Regina, Skeard began considering how graduate school could blend their passion for music with more visual work: having previously collaborated with School of Music Masters alumni — who all spoke highly of their experiences here — and realizing that a Visual Arts MFA offered studio space and the chance to work interdisciplinarily, Skeard decided UVic was the perfect place to continue their education. “It’s a rewarding process for those who want to be challenged and reflect on their work in a new context,” they say of their MFA work. “The community it fosters is really a large part of the experience.”
This past year, Skeard has been busy mounting two solo exhibitions, participating in interdisciplinary showcases and activating their Audain Travel Award. In Belgium, they visited curators, galleries and the Orpheus Institute — a premier international center for advanced musical studies and artistic research — before connecting with the Bureau for Listening, a leading artistic research group in Copenhagen.
Watch for more news about their ONC installation coming up in September 2026.
—with files by Claudia Phillips and photos by Shay Ball
