THE TRIENNIAL 2025

Evelyn Rydz

Convergence: Porous Futures, 2025

Steel, native plants, and natural stones

Evelyn Rydz’s work emphasizes the interrelatedness of bodies of water, personal histories, consumer cycles, and climate change. In the hands of Rydz, water is a transcendent conduit for stories and connection

Convergence: Porous Futures is a site-specific installation that explores the Boston Inner Harbor as a place of confluence. Situated near the meeting point of the Mystic and Charles Rivers, this project is shaped by their unique histories and aquatic characteristics as they merge and flow into global waters. A reflective sculpture, modeled after a storm drain, hovers over a living garden featuring bioswales shaped to mirror the geography of the two rivers. This design draws attention to the often-overlooked water infrastructure and its environmental impact amidst increasing weather extremes. Bioswales, channels designed to capture stormwater runoff known to degrade river ecosystems, are key to this integration. Below the sculpture, a climate-resilient garden of native plants thrives, acting as a natural filter for pollutants that enter shared water bodies. Convergence: Porous Futures illustrates the joining of local and global, the impact of the individual on the collective, and questions what it is we choose to preserve, both past and present.

Visible 24/7

Charlestown Navy Yard
1 5th St.
Boston, MA 02129

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Evelyn Rydz

b. 1979

Evelyn Rydz works across drawing, site-responsive installations, and community projects to reimagine our relationships with the natural world and with each other. Her practice explores connections between bodies of water, personal histories, consumer cycles, and threats to natural and cultural ecosystems.

Rydz is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, Artadia Award, Brother Thomas Fellowship, and U.S. Latinx Art Forum Charla Fund. Exhibitions include features at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Anchorage Museum, AK; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Lowe Art Museum, Miami, FL; and Palacio de Justicia, Matanzas, Cuba.

Rydz has collaborated on community projects with ICA Watershed, Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, and MIT List Visual Arts Center. Rydz received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and is currently Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.