Rachele Riley, World Wide Water (Richmond), still from animation, 2021

project
World Wide Water
Multimedia and multiple installments—hand coded (Python, Processing) animation, typographic design, digital collage, image making, archival and letterpress printing, mapping, writing

current installment
→ World Wide Water: Visualizing the Dynamics of Water, Letterforms, and Space, Fulbright-Glasgow School of Art Distinguished Scholar research in Glasgow, UK.
→ Link to a VCUarts article about my research and Fulbright award.

overview
World Wide Water explores the dynamics and poetics of water. The project connects technologies, geographies, histories, relationships, emotions, and environments, and visually explores these issues and reflects on quality, access, conflict, health, joy, and phenomena. Combining analog and digital processes in hand coding, image and typography craft. writing, and research—the project expresses a shifting visual and experiential mapping of water(s).

Fulbright Scholar research
“World Wide Water: Visualizing the Dynamics of Water, Letterforms, and Space,” will involve research into water ecologies, mythologies, technologies, phenomena, and the expression of letterform design in urban and rural areas, specifically in Glasgow, Scotland and the Highlands. I will be conducting field, studio, and archival research, taking inspiration from the feminist histories and artistic innovations of the area, and working on a visual mapping and multimedia image series on water and environmental typography. Encompassing drawing, interactive imaging, collage, typography, lettering, and animation,

I began World Wide Water in 2000 while living in Halle, Germany—as a conceptual project which mixed fresh waters from locations around the world. In this early version, the visuals represent diverse and specific source locations and explore the emotional and physical value of the waters, as it relates to scarcity and access. For InLight21 in Richmond, VA, I created a site-specific public installation of the project at Great Shiplock Park using data from the shifting levels of the James River. I created animations of water words and images and projected them onto structures at the former canal lock connecting past water industries and urban settings. The images, words, collages, and their movements evoke the shapes and directed movement of ships and flow of tides and water ripples; incorporate real and fictional words; and combine visual references to water technology, industries, swimming, bathing, immersion, access, health, and joy. Working from the imagery of these animations, I created a series of graphic prints—Reflective print series. An adapted excerpt of this series was projected onto a building in Durham, NC as part of the Rooftops and Alleyways public art installation.

credits
copyright © Rachele Riley (concept, graphic design, imaging, typographics, hand coding)

Special thanks to Python workshops led by David Jonathan Ross and Allison Parrish.
Funded in part through grants from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

exhibitions + presentations
→ Public Art installation via Durham Productions, adapted for projection onto the Addison Building in downtown Durham, NC, 2024
→ Artist Talk and Paper Presentation, Shifting Perspectives Panel, at CAA, Chicago, IL, 2024
→ UNCG Art Faculty Exhibition, Greensboro Project Space, Greensboro, NC, 2024
→ Art Produce Gallery, San Diego, CA, 2022
→ InLight21/1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, public art installation at Great Shiplock park, curated by Dr Tiffany Barber, Wesley Taylor, Park Myers, Nov 12–13, 2021

image captions
Rachele Riley, World Wide Water (Mystic Radiant Winding), from “WWW Reflective” print series & adapted projection, 2024
Rachele Riley, World Wide Water (Richmond), stills from animation & InLight21 installation, 2021