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Environmental Science
Where science meets art: Local artist transforms data from SFU researchers into public art piece
A new public art installation at CF Richmond Centre has an unexpected connection to SFU’s River Dynamics Lab (RDL).
Artist Rebecca Bayer’s latest commissioned project, BALANCE, is a 300-feet-wide sculpted mural that renders the Fraser River Delta in 268 aluminum cross-sections.
Located on the façade facing the shopping centre’s plaza, the art piece shifts with the changing light and viewer’s position, inviting them to experience it from its centre where the two arms intersect.
What viewers may not realize is that the wavy patterns formed by its vertical bands are not abstractions or symbolic, but an authentic representation of the riverbed’s submerged contours, thanks to Bayer’s use of bathymetric data provided by SFU Environmental Science professor and RDL lead, Jeremy Venditti.
“At its core, BALANCE makes an invisible system visible,” Bayer shares. “By materializing the riverbed’s hidden topography, the work invites viewers to recognize the river as dynamic and continually evolving, and to consider their own relationship to the environmental systems that shape the city.”
Venditti, who has known Bayer for over a decade, recalls the conversation the two had where she shared news of the project and how she wanted to mimic the river’s shape and depth.
“And I said, well that’s interesting because you know, that’s what I study,” he says. “I have all that information.”
He and other researchers in his lab have previously mapped the Fraser’s riverbed many times, including the river’s main channel—sections Bayer says define the City of Richmond’s geography.
“Using these specific areas ties the sculpture directly to the hydrological systems that physically shape the city’s land form,” she explains.
The sonar data was obtained by geomorphologist and adjunct SFU professor Ryan Bradley, who mapped it during his time working in the lab. It was then processed into sections—sliced—by postdoctoral fellow Aaron Steelquist, which is what was provided to Bayer.
To create BALANCE, Bayer chose to mirror each arm, “[shifting] the piece away from a literal map and toward a more experiential form, suggesting movement, flow and continual change,” she says.
Bayer’s body of work includes pieces across the Lower Mainland commissioned by municipalities, developers, health institutions and transit authorities. All are grounded in ecological awareness and the unique qualities of the site, drawing directly from local geology, water systems, flora and fauna, as well as the colours in the surrounding ecosystem.
She begins each project by understanding the location’s specific conditions “and letting those factors shape the form and materials of the work,” she explains. “In some public and mosaic works, this responsiveness extends to the social context through community participation, while projects like BALANCE involve scientific collaboration, translating environmental data into form.”
While collaborating with researchers and local knowledge holders is a consistent part of Bayer’s practice, she says this is the first time she’s used scientific data directly.
Venditti says he has also previously received assistance from Bayer, who gave him advice last year on river drawings for a literature review paper he will publish this spring.
“A lot of the stuff scientists do, we have to represent it in a way that looks appealing,” he says. “I think there’s a kind of crossover there—how to artistically represent scientific data.”
Bayer says that she sees science and art as complementary modes of inquiry. “Science offers analysis and measurement; art offers embodied and perceptual understanding. Together they create accessible ways to engage complex environmental knowledge and translate research into lived experience.”
The public can see BALANCE in-person now at CF Richmond Centre in the City of Richmond. On March 14th, Bayer and Venditti will also speak at an Artist Salon at the Richmond Art Gallery. Learn more and RSVP to their free talk here.