The nearly two-million-year-old Neuse River is one of the oldest in what is now known as the United States and stretches some 275 miles across the state of North Carolina. Its waters traverse ancient rift basins created during the break-up of the supercontinent Pangea and accumulate behind dams of the modern epoch before flowing onward to the global ocean. Rivers have the capacity to remember and tell stories; to connect the past, the present and the future.

The River Cube Project will explore the Neuse River as a unique environment created and influenced by relationships between nature, people, and technology. The Project is the catalyst for the collection and creation of context-specific materials that take the form of sculpture, drawings, data, audio visual materials, scientific and social studies that synthesize and reflect - present a sampling of - the Neuse River’s diversity and complexity.

The River Cube Project is a floating studio, laboratory and experimental space. Within this space, we plan to explore the physical space of the river itself, i.e., as an excavated form carved by water over millennia as well as other interactions within the space. These include the geological and anthropological history of the river, both current and historical scientific research on the river and the instruments and tactics used to better understand this natural phenomenon and its formation, the scientists involved, as well as any collective mythology on the river, and how all of these impact the region’s rich socio-ecological and cultural history.

Through the River Cube Project, we hope to bring together a rich and useful dialogue among regional participants in the arts, sciences and humanities as well as within the local communities affected by the Neuse River.