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.

Soil Procession
2015
procession, ground-building ceremony, land declaration 
Losaeter, Oslo, Norway
in collaboration Futurefarmers
The grains carried aboard Seed Journey (2017) were cultivated as part of a "groundbuilding" effort at Futurefarmers-led project site in Oslo, Norway. Losæter is a new cultural institution on a common along the waterfront in Bjørvika (Oslo) dedicated to a range of activities related to art and urban food production. It includes Flatbread Society’s activities, Herligheten allotment community, an ancient grain field, a bakehouse and Oslo’s first City farmer. Losæter is a space in constant organic development. Pictured here is the grainfield topped with a map of soils from across Norway. I was a collaborator for the Soil Procession and Seed Journey aspects of the Losæter project.

Soil Procession posters by Amy Franceschini, Futurefarmers. Download a PDF copy here.

On June 13, 2015 a procession of farmers carried soil from their farms through the city of Oslo to its new home at Losæter. Soil Procession was a groundbuilding ceremony that used the soil collected from over fifty Norwegian farms from as far north as Tromsø and as far south as Stokke, to build the foundation of the Flatbread Society Grain Field and Bakehouse. A procession of soil and people through Oslo drew attention to this historical, symbolic moment of the transition of a piece of land into a permanent stage for art and action related to food production. 



At high noon, farmers gathered at the Oslo Botanical Gardens joined by city dwellers. Tractors, horses, wagons, wheelbarrows, musical instruments, voices, sheep, boats, backpacks and bikes processed to Losæter where the farmers’ soil offerings were laid out upon the site and a Land Declaration was signed:

“With the establishment of Losæter at Loallmenningen, we mark our commitment to support and highlight agriculture as a central part of the Bjørvikas cultural landscape. We hereby declare Losæter acultural commons. Losæter shall advance and contribute to the free and open exchange of seeds, knowledge, and relationships that grew out of this place. By signing this document, living traditions should be protected from any laws that interfere with these activities and that may be obstacles to the cultivation, distribution and future use of the biological material that grows on this land. The Flatbread Society Grainfield is an expression for this agreement. Unlike museums that collect and preserve works of art, The Flatbread Society Grainfield is a museum without walls that preserves through sharing and distribution.”