JOERILEY.WORK





joriley@ucsd.edu
@pleasedontfront
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Photo: Natalie Conn

 Joe Riley is an artist, historian, and Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego Visual Arts in a joint environmental research program with Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. 

  Joe’s research has recently been supported by the Getty Scholars Program, a UCSD Rita L. Atkinson Fellowship, and the UC Humanities Research Institute. His dissertation, Fixing the Sea: Case Studies Toward A Critical Environmental History of Ocean Art and Science since 1970, foregrounds and critically examines histories and practices of interaction between artists, oceanographers, and marine life situated within California’s university-military-research complex.

  From 2020–2025 Joe has been a participating artist and co-curator for the Pacific Standard Time exhibition Embodied Pacific, featuring projects by thirty artists working with researchers in laboratories, field sites, and archives in Southern California and the Pacific Islands. 

  Previously, he was an Ocean Fellow with TBA21-Academy and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Joe holds a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and has taught at UC San Diego, Cal State San Marcos, Stevens Institute of Technology, and The Cooper Union.
EXHIBITIONS & RESIDENCIES


2025In Plain View: Transforming Freshkills from Landfill to Landscape, Aronson Gallery, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY 
Artist-in-Residence aboard R/V Sally Ride Research Cruise: Characterizing Santa Lucia Escarpment: Linking Bottom-Up Processes to Marine Biodiversity in a Proposed National Marine Sanctuary, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD
2024Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen, Getty Pacific Standard Time Exhibition, UCSD & Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Social Sediment, group show curated by Dane Nakayama and gene aguilar magaña, New Wight Gallery, UCLA

2022The Mothership Artists Residency, Yto Barrada & ArtAngel, Tangier, Morocco

Fruiting Bodies, participating artist with Futurefarmers, group exhibition curated by Sam Rauch, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, NY

Artists' Research Laboratory, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy
2021Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, participating artist with Futurefarmers, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH

A World Without Us, Art Practice Ph.D. Student & Candidate Exhibition, Visual Arts Facility Commons Gallery, UC San Diego

Freshkills Park Field R/D Virtual Exhibition, curated by Dylan Gauthier and Mariel Villeré, online

2020Into the ground, permanent installation at The Courts, Borrego Springs, CA

2019A public appearance, Art Practice Ph.D. Student & Candidate Exhibition, University Art Gallery, UC San Diego 
Into the Ground: Los Angeles, Clockshop, The Bowtie Project, Los Angeles, CA

Cooper Union Alumni Exhibition, Fish House, The Cooper Union, New York, NY

2018The Socrates Annual, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY

2017Sharjah Biennale 13, participating artist with Futurefarmers, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Resistance After Nature, participating artist with Futurefarmers, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College

Futurefarmers: Arrange participating artist with Futurefarmers, Hunter East Harlem Gallery, NY 

Reconstruir, group exhibition, Cooper Union, New York, NY

Freshkills Field R/D Artist Residency, NYC Parks & Freshkills Park Alliance, New York, NY

2016Artes Mundi 7, participating artist with Futurefarmers, National Museum Cardiff, United Kingdom

ALT/FUTURE: A Video Screening aboard SWALE, curated by BiomeArts, Brooklyn, NY

SCAM, curated by Erica Lyle, Wayfarer Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2015Guest Artist Residency, participating artist with Futurefarmers, University of Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Program, Madison, WI

Flatbread Society: Soil Procession, participating artist with Futurefarmers, Oslo, Norway

Left Coast: California Political Art, participating artist with Futurefarmers, CUNY James Gallery, NY

2014Our Education!?, an exhibition with Free Cooper Union, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY

ZAHOPLENNYA, Izolyatsia Platform for Culture Initiatives, Kyiv, Ukraine
2013The Politics of Destruction, performance with Free Cooper Union, e-flux, New York, NY

Free Cooper Union Residency, Bruce High Quality Foundation University, New York, NY 

Free Ride, Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY