Think About Water: Exquisite River

April 14 - June 2, 2024

Opening Reception Sunday April 14, 2024, 1-3 pm

Exquisite River is a collaborative installation created by members of the Think About Water collective (TAW). TAW includes over 30 environmental artists/activists in the US and abroad whose work addresses global water issues. Exquisite River is composed of 19 works of art evoking rivers. The images are connected to one another to form one continuous flowing river—a river of images of rivers.

For the exhibition at ECOCA, the 19 artists were inspired by the format of the Surrealist Exquisite Corpse game, in which one artist drew a head, folded the paper so it could not be seen, passed it to another artist who drew the next part of the body, and so on until the paper was unfolded to reveal the whole figure. In the spirit of artistic play and mimicking the fluid nature of rivers, the TAW collective has created an Exquisite River.

For the exhibition, each artist created a section of a river in his or her own studio using their distinctive materials, processes and intentions and without seeing other artists’ contributions. The sections were then assembled into one long river that winds across the gallery walls. The goal of the exhibition is to bring awareness to the importance of rivers to the health of the environment and to encourage visitors to appreciate a river in their own lives. 

Personal stories about each of the rivers represented in the exhibition, along with information about the artwork, bios of the artists, and links to their websites are available in a digital catalog accompanying the show. 

Contributing Artists: Michelle Boyle, Diane Burko, Betsy Damon, Leila Daw, Rosalyn Driscoll, Susan Hoffman Fishman, Doug Fogelson, Fredericka Foster, Giana Gonzalez, Fritz Horstman, Basia Irland, Sant Khalsa, Stacy Levy, Jaanika Peerna, Ilana Manolson, Aviva Rahmani, Lisa Reindorf, Meridel Rubenstein, Leslie Sobel, Naoe Suzuki

For more information please visit the TAW website.