120 years of Earth's ocean levels from tide gauge records (and 3 year average) is embroidered on silk and emerges from an oil can.

Global mean sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting land-based ice sheets and glaciers (70%), and the thermal expansion of seawater as it warms (30%). Global mean sea level is an important climate indicator, providing information on how the ocean is warming and how much land ice is melting. Global sea levels have been rising for decades in response to a warming climate. Long-term sea level rise is expected to aggravate coastal erosion, coastal flooding, and saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers.

Over the past century, the average height of the sea has risen more consistently, less than a centimeter every year, but those small additions add up. Today, sea level is 5 to 8 inches (13-20 centimeters) higher on average than it was in 1900. That's a pretty big change. For the previous 2,000 years, sea level hadn't changed much at all. The rate of sea level rise has also increased over time. Between 1900 and 1990, studies show that sea level rose between 1.2 millimeters and 1.7 millimeters per year on average. By 2000, that rate had increased to about 3.2 millimeters per year and the rate in 2016 was estimated at 3.4 millimeters per year. Sea level is expected to rise even more quickly by the end of the century. For more info about global mean sea level, go to NASA and Copernicus or National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Other oil can graphs are here.

Sea Level Rise started out in a 9x 9x3" wooden box for a Textile Study Group of NY show.