Lillian Ball

Lillian Ball is an artist and environmental activist working in New York. Water imagery has been a constant subtext, but recent subject matter focuses specifically on environmental concerns. ”Leap of Faith," a recent body of work, uses photography and video installation to address the issues around an ongoing wetland preservation project on the North Fork of Long Island. She has developed GO ECO about that fragile ecosystem, an interactive game installation metaphorically based on the ancient Asian game of Go, as a solo show for the Queens Museum of Art. Her major new work, GO Doñana, an expanded interactive installation about a threatened UNESCO wetland in Andalucia, was commissioned by the 2008 Seville Biennial. These “serious games for change” encourage cooperation by documenting the restoration process, presenting scientific information, and inspiring civic involvement.

A multidisciplinary background in anthropology, ethnographic film, and sculpture inform her work. She has received numerous awards including a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Computer Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Sculpture. She has exhibited internationally, and traveled widely. An invitation to make a piece for the Swedish Embassy symposium “Water + Environment” resulted in an ice video about climate change above the Arctic Circle. Her new media installations have been exhibited in Weather Report at the Boulder Museum, Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University, and The Drop at Exit Art in New York City. In 2007, she curated Called to Action: Environmental Restoration By Artists, an exhibition of twelve creative strategies.

Her most recent project, WATERWASH™ (2007-2009), stormwater remediation and education at a permanent public park in Mattituck, New York,  was funded by the Long Island Sound Study and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (www.waterwash.info).