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NEW ORLEANS — Multi-platinum singer-songwriter and visual artist Jewel unveils her groundbreaking soundscape drawing on ocean health metrics at a pressroom media roundtable at AGU’s Annual Meeting 12 noon CST on Tuesday, 16 December at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
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Gathering data on oceanic health metrics including temperature variations, migratory animal patterns, wave activity, and salinity, Jewel has generated a unique 12-minute soundscape that will “sing on behalf of Earth’s oceans,” sharing both historic and real time fluctuations in the data being collected.
Jewel worked closely with teams from NASA, NOAA, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to the original composition, Jewel has fashioned the Heart of the Ocean, an eight-foot-tall resin and steel sculpture animated by 60,000 dancing LED lights. Designed to embody the dynamic relationship between human activity and the sea, the data-fed soundtrack plays out from this original piece of art.
Heart of the Ocean is part of Jewel’s second major art exhibition, Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost, which will debut at the Salone Verde in Venice in May. Matriclysm spans original painting, sculpture, textiles, installation, and sound, while also merging neuroscience, data, and craft. It is presented with Crystal Bridges Museum and will run alongside the 2026 Venice Biennale.
“In making Heart of the Ocean, I hope it demonstrates how art can help translate complex scientific data into something people can intuitively understand,” says Jewel. “Working with NASA, NOAA, Stanford, and UC Berkeley allowed me to convert ocean metrics into sound and light, revealing both the resilience and the vulnerability in the data.”
“In making Heart of the Ocean, I hope it demonstrates how art can help translate complex scientific data into something people can intuitively understand,” says Jewel. “Working with NASA, NOAA, Stanford, and UC Berkeley allowed me to convert ocean metrics into sound and light, revealing both the resilience and the vulnerability in the data.”
Additional Panelists include:
- Artist Greg Niemeyer, Professor of Media Innovation, Department of Art Practice at UC Berkley
- Kevin Murphy, NASA Chief Science Data Office
- Dr. Chelle Gentemann, Open Science Program Scientist, NASA Office of the Chief Science Data Officer on Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignment from the International Computer Science Institute
About Jewel
Jewel is a 4x Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, visual artist, actress, New York Times best-selling author, and mental health pioneer. In spring 2024, Jewel made her visual art debut Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas with ‘The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel’. The exhibition was one of the most visited at the museum in 2024. Throughout her art, Jewel combines her passions for storytelling, experimentation and democratizing mental health.
For the past 25 years, Jewel’s Inspiring Children Foundation and Jewel Inc. have brought specially designed mental health programs to at-risk youth and to leading corporations. Jewel created SELLA, a language arts curriculum for schools integrating social and emotional learning and mental health practices, and recently co-founded Innerworld, an innovative virtual mental health platform. Jewel’s remarkable journey has taken her from a childhood with no running water on an Alaskan homestead to becoming a multi-platinum recording artist and mental health advocate.
She has released 13 studio albums, including her latest release Freewheelin’ Woman, and recently embarked on a national co-headlining tour with Melissa Etheridge.
Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost, which will feature Heart of the Ocean, marks the largest presentation of Jewel’s fine art practice to date.
About AGU25 (#AGU25)
AGU25 will bring more than 20,000 Earth and space scientists to the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center from 15-19 December. Members of the press and public information officers can request complimentary press registration for the meeting now through the end of the conference. Learn more about the press AGU25 experience in our online Press Center.
About AGU
AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.