When Parvin Hasani applied for the 2025 ArtScience Fellowship with Ocean Networks Canada — the sixth Fine Arts graduate student to hold this position — she proposed exploring the extreme ecosystems of deep-sea hydrothermal vents via her sculptural practice. Now, after spending the summer in conversation with ONC researchers and constructing her own conceptual pieces, she’s ready to debut her exhibit, Tides of Memory.
“Initially, I imagined creating pieces inspired by vent chimneys, but the work shifted toward a more layered connection,” Parvin explains. “I began linking the vents not only to geology but also to the deep mind — tracing parallels between flows of iron, water, and the ways memory forms and erodes.”
Ultimately, she came away with a deeper sense of how scientific ways of seeing the deep ocean could intersect with artistic imagination. “Hydrothermal vents revealed themselves as natural infrastructures — hidden, porous networks where flows of minerals and water carry echoes of memory across deep time,” she says.
Tides of Memory runs September 8-12 at the Audain Gallery in UVic’s Visual Arts building, with a public talk at 5pm Tuesday, September 9 in Visual Arts room A146.
Combining art with science
Thanks to ONC’s oceanographic research on the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vent Field — an active, mineral-rich environment on the deep-sea Juan de Fuca Ridge — Parvin was able to create a visual interpretation of these hidden systems that was grounded in her MFA sculptural practice.
“My graduate work explored water infrastructures, which shaped the way I began to think about the ocean and hydrothermal vents as kinds of natural infrastructure,” she says. “The materials and the techniques I used — plaster, brass in scagliola and electro-etching — allowed me to transform scientific information into installations and sculptures.”
Using these creative processes, she was then able to echo mineral growth and erosion. “These pieces translate data about vent fields into installations and sculptures that act as bodily archives of memory and time.”
The surprise for the artist was finding how deeply the notion of hidden networks resonates — “whether in the porous chimneys of hydrothermal vents or in the ways we imagine memory,” she says. “Talking with scientists, I felt we were tracing the same invisible lines from different worlds.”
Hear from the artist
As well as learning about her process and getting a guided tour, audiences at the public talk will learn more about the artistic and scientific concepts behind the exhibit.
“I’ll share how Tides of Memory reimagines hydrothermal vents through installations and sculptures — as bodily archives where geological processes, iron, and water become metaphors for memory and survival across deep time,” she says.
The call for applications for the 2026 ArtScience Fellowship will go out in Fall 2025. Read about our previous Fine Arts graduate student ONC artistic residencies: Megan Harton, Neil Griffin, Colin Malloy, Dennis Gupa and Colton Hash.
