About

Welcome to the Portfolio of Sarah Waterson

Dr. Sarah Waterson is a media artist and practice-led researcher specialising in mapping, materiality, and data ecologies. Her key research explores data ecologies and cybernetic understandings of the world, aiming to develop works that critique the practices embedded within these systems. For over thirty years, she has invited audiences to engage with the politics of representation and the frameworks that shape our perceptions.

Embracing collaborative and experimental practices—including non-human collaborations, site-specific electronic arts, data-driven installations, and generative software-based artworks—she explores the intersections of art, science, and philosophy. By integrating scientific, historical, and philosophical perspectives, her work seeks to refine experimental art forms and challenge conventional narratives.

She has exhibited interactive environments both nationally and internationally, including:

• WeatherState (ISEA2024)
  • An ongoing generative work visualising weather data to explore ocean environmental climate change phenomena.
• Hothouse (Cementa2019)
  • An installation connecting exotic plant species with climate systems to critique the relationship between nature and capital.
• Laika’s Dérive (Carriageworks, Sydney; Furtherfield, London)
  • An interactive project inviting participants to experience urban spaces from a canine perspective, centring the non-human.
• trope (Sydney Writers’ Festival)
  • A virtual environment promoting new Australian writing, creatively intervening in the reader’s engagement with text.
• subscape-PROOF (Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Sydney Opera House)
  • A data-mapping installation critiquing political rhetoric and media through generative video and sound.

As an academic at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University, she continues to work with practice-led interdisciplinary research.