Alex Ayed
Between Rivers
solo show
Between Rivers brings together the practices of contemporary artists who respond to the place of rivers in our lives at a moment when they are being profoundly reshaped by human activity. While rivers have been an important subject for artists since at least the nineteenth century and are at the center of significant developments in fields as varied as sociology, political organization, and the built environment, in recent years they have been discussed with an increasing urgency. Reports of major rivers dropping to their lowest levels on record have appeared alongside accounts of atmospheric rivers causing severe flooding. Systems that are crucial to the functioning of our contemporary world, such as the production of hydroelectricity, food security, and global transportation networks, are being profoundly impacted. Simultaneously, the recognition of indigenous definitions of rivers, and the expansion of scientific and legal ones, are changing what we mean by the term.
The artists included in Between Rivers propose new ways of reading and imagining rivers. While many of the works are characterized by modes of expression that are particular to each artist’s practice—perhaps unsurprising given the challenge of representing a subject that is at once fixed and relentlessly in motion—they are nonetheless related by the image, process, or material of a river.
