- This event has passed.
Siphoning the Underground with Anthony Acciavatti & Panel Discussion with AIA Rhode Island Architects
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
6:00 pm
Brown University, List Art Building, Room 120
Free
The 2025 Laurinda Spear 72′ Lecture Series on the Visual Arts: Anthony Acciavatti
To be joined during the panel discussion with: Martha L. Werenfels, FAIA, David Sisson, AIA, and Spencer Alexander, AIA.
Acciavatti’s lecture Siphoning the Underground explores the ways in which cities and agricultural landscapes across the globe have come to rely on groundwater for drinking and irrigation. By examining the unintended consequences of over extraction, from sinking cities to contamination, and how they are compounded by the impacts of climate change, we will see how vital this often-invisible source of freshwater is to billions of people. The talk will foreground the delicate hydrological processes that shape aquifers, with a focus on the evolution of two of the most over-extracted landscapes on the planet, South Asia and the American West, and how they came to be laboratories for groundwater extraction since the nineteenth century. Special attention will be given to groundwater challenges in Rhode Island and New England, where saltwater intrusion and contamination pose risks. By foregrounding our thirst for groundwater and increasing vulnerability to over-extraction, the lecture underscores the need to shift our perception of aquifers as a common resource—like the air we breathe—in order to reimagine how deeply affected it is by individual and collective actions.
Developed in collaboration with AIA Rhode Island, the 2025-2026 Spear Lecture will center on environmental histories and contemporary practices of architecture in New England. One of the most distinctive features of New England is its relationship to water. The region is defined by shorelines and wetlands, which have posed both challenges and opportunities for architects, designers, and builders throughout history. Join us as we focus on this topic with historian Anthony Acciavatti in conversation with practicing architects in Rhode Island.
