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.

Free Cooper Stanchions
2013
12” x 24” x 48”
ash, balsa, velvet rope, glass, picture frame 
A laser cut facade of the Cooper Union Foundation Building, updated with the signs and symbols of the student protests against tuition at Cooper Union. The streamers are from the 2012 day of action, the "Free Education to All" banner from the December 2012 lock-in, and the red-illuminated windows of the President's office from the 65 day-long student occupation. Two halves of a wooden (ash) stanchion flank the frame.