Artist Talk: Floating Garden Creator Mary Mattingly
Across sculpture, photography, performance, and public installation, Mary Mattingly builds environments that ask how people might share water, food, shelter, and energy amid climate catastrophe. She approaches nature as a field of interdependence, one that depends on the ongoing maintenance of its fragile commons. Her recent project, Floating Garden (a collaboration with RIT), repurposes a mid-century 30-by-80-foot industrial barge that traveled from Rochester to Medina on the Erie Canal in 2025.
Mattingly will deliver a free and open-to-all artist talk at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Liberal Arts Hall, room A205. The event is part of RIT's Anna Ballarian Visiting Artist Series.
Developed in collaboration with RIT students, local gardeners, volunteers, architects, and agricultural educators, Floating Garden models a temporary commons: a space for nourishment and gathering. It was created for the inaugural Medina Triennial, on view through Sept. 7, 2026, in Medina, N.Y. The vessel hosts edible and medicinal plants, sculptural elements, biochar based water filtration systems, and a shelter for programming.
Event Snapshot
When and Where
Who
Open to the Public
Interpreter Requested?
No