Close your eyes for a moment, forget the spring sky over Spokane, forget the coffee shop hum or the traffic on Riverside. You are now two miles below the surface of the North Pacific, and the pilot of a remotely operated vehicle has just switched on the lights.
The sunlight disappears first, the blue fades to black, and the temperature drops to near-freezing. The pressure outside the viewport is crushing – hundreds of times greater than what your body knows, and just when you think nothing could possibly survive in that darkness, the seafloor suddenly blooms with color.
A Preview of the Exhibit
Fiery orange corals waving like bushes in the current, soft pink feathery forms, luminous gold stalks like tall grasses, and within the darkness; dramatic sponges rise like underwater cathedrals, some of them likely centuries old. Brittle stars curl along their branches like jeweled bracelets, tiny amphipods cram into every harboring crevice, and small fish slip between coral arms the way birds move through a forest canopy.
This isn’t a tropical reef halfway around the world; this is America’s own deep ocean. In 2023, explorers with NOAA Ocean Exploration sent a remotely operated vehicle nearly two miles down into U.S. waters off Alaska’s coast, and what they found stunned even seasoned researchers: dense coral gardens and sponge grounds, teeming with life.
And now, that unseen world is coming to Spokane.
The Unseen Ocean Collective – artists Meghan Jones of Spokane, WA, Nilanjana Das of Corvallis, OR, Kierstin Keller of Juneau AK, and marine biologist Lara Beckmann of the University of Gothenburg Sweden – have transformed that NOAA expedition into an immersive gallery experience. Acrylic canvases show off brilliant pink branching corals, bright orange anemones, a rainbow hued resting octopus, and brilliant white ruffled sponges, capturing the seemingly impossible vibrancy of deep-sea landscapes. Nearby, meticulous gouache illustrations render single coral polyps with the precision of a scientific field guide, and reveal a multitude of deep-sea shrimp hidden in each and every corner. Immersive sculptures illustrate the beautiful architecture of coral colonies and sponge bodies, revealing the unique geometry of the biological deep, one organism at a time.
But here’s the thing: you’re not just here to look.
On a table near the entrance, a stack of clipboards and dry-erase markers waits for you to grab one and participate; you’re an explorer now. The Collective has hidden animals throughout the artwork – brittle stars coiled around coral branches, tiny fish lurking in sponge houses, and many, many shrimp. Your mission? Find them all. Spot the brittle stars, a bristle worm, or the octopus? Mark it down, have fun, try comparing notes with a friend (or another gallery visitor). It’s playful, it’s hands-on, and lets you slip into the scientist’s shoes for a while: Observe, gather data, analyze.
If clipboards aren’t your style, free deep-sea coloring sheets invite you to sit for a while and add your own colors to this hidden world. What color is a sponge you’ve never seen? That’s up to you, join the creativity and the Collective in bringing this unseen world to life.
The biology behind the art is just as fascinating as the art itself.
Corals and sponges are so-called “ecosystem engineers.” Rising off the seafloor, they create three-dimensional structure in a landscape that would otherwise be rather flat. They offer shelter, hunting grounds, nursery space, and protection from predators; just like trees in a woodland. That metaphor resonates deeply here in the Inland Northwest, as we understand forests and their importance, we also understand what happens when habitat disappears.
To bring the deep sea even closer to the Spokane community, the Collective has partnered with Mobius Discovery Center and Launch Northwest to bring twelve Spokane Public Schools classes through the exhibit. Students will tour the gallery with the artists, then head to Mobius for a marine biology session with Lara. And thanks to Art Salvage Spokane, every class will leave with a “take-and-make” coral kit – recycled pipe cleaners, fabric scraps, and textured paper bundled together so they can build their own coral garden at home. Feel the twist of the pipe cleaner, the softness of the fabric, the bump of the textured paper. This is what a sponge might feel like, if you could reach two miles down and touch one.
The Collective is also offering free one-hour talks to Spokane and Spokane Valley middle schools, high schools, and local colleges. For the rest of us, a public talk will take place at The Hive:
Saturday, April 18, 2026 | 1-3 pm
Each session includes a 60-minute presentation, a 30-minute Q&A, and time to mingle with the Collective. Come curious.
Funding for this ambitious project began when Meghan Jones was awarded the SAGA grant through Spokane Arts in August 2025. Additional support came from Langmanska Kulturfunden in Sweden, the British Ecological Society, and partnerships with Sustainable Ocean Alliance and The Deep-Sea Podcast.
Awe doesn’t require proximity, and you don’t have to live on the coast to care about the ocean. America’s largest wilderness lies underwater, it regulates our climate, supports our fisheries, and holds species we are only just beginning to understand. Scientists estimate we’ve explored less than 0.001 percent of the deep ocean, which means that most of the planet’s largest wilderness remains completely unknown to us.
Here in Spokane – surrounded by pine forests and basalt cliffs, hours from the nearest salt water – we are being invited to witness coral gardens more than 10,500 feet beneath the surface. To stand in a gallery and feel, if only briefly, the humbling vastness, diversity and beauty that our blue planet holds. To remember that discovery is still happening. That there are places on Earth where no human has ever been.
The deep ocean may be out of sight.
But thanks to the Unseen Ocean Collective, it is no longer out of reach.
Exhibition Details:
The Unseen Ocean Collective – America’s Hidden Coral Gardens
Chase Gallery | 808 W Spokane Falls Blvd
Opening Reception: Friday, April 3, 5-8pm (remarks at 6pm)
Exhibit runs through April 25, 2026
Free and open to the public
Co-Author
Lara Maleen Beckmann
Lara Maleen Beckmann is a PhD researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, scientific illustrator and co-founder of the Unseen Ocean Collective. Her research explores the diversity, reproduction and ecology of deep-sea and cold-water corals and sponges, working closely with collaborators in the US and Canada. Passionate about bridging science and art, she collaborates with artists to bring deep-ocean ecosystems beyond academia and into public spaces through creative storytelling and outreach.
