Xavier Cortada, “Five Actions to Stop Rising Seas: Freeze it!,” video screen shot, 2015.
In acknowledgement of the support from the Rauschenberg Residency/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Biography

Miami artist Xavier Cortada’s socially-engaged art practice addresses environmental concerns. He often collaborates with scientists in his art-making:

He has collaborated with population geneticists to explore our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000-years ago, with molecular biologists to synthesize a DNA strand from a sequence 400 museum visitors randomly generated, and withbotanists to develop multi-year participatory eco-art efforts to reforest mangroves, native trees and wildflowers across Florida.

At CERN, Cortada and a particle physicist created a permanent digital-art piece to celebrate the Higgs boson discovery. At Hubbard Brook, he worked with hydrologists on a water cycle visualization project driven by real-time datacollected at a watershed in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Recent works that address Sea Level Rise and Global Climate Change include:

Underwater HOA | Village of Pinecrest (2018)

DO NOT OPEN | MACLA, San Jose(2017)

Testamento | City of Hialeah (2016)

Hot for Hialeah | Union of Concerned Scientists and Florida International University (2016)

Five Action Steps to Stop Sea Level Rise | Rauschenberg Residency (2015)

Just Below the Surface (Founding of Miami Beach) | Florida Coastal Everglades LTER (2015)

Earlier works include:

Endangered World: Biscayne National Park (2010)

Native Flags: North Pole | NYFA Sponsored Artist (2008)

Longitudinal Installation | NSF Antarctic Writers and Artists Fellowship(2007)

Antarctic Ice Paintings | NSF Antarctic Writers and Artists Fellowship (2007)

The Reclamation Project | Frost Science Museum (2006)

Cortada has created environmental installations (North Pole and South Pole), eco-art projects (Taiwan and Holland), and painted community murals addressing peace (Cyprus and Northern Ireland), child welfare (Bolivia and Panama), AIDS (Switzerland and South Africa) and juvenile justice (Miami and Philadelphia) concerns.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the NSU Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, the Whatcom Museum, and the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum.

Learn more at www.cortada.com or visit his studio gallery at Pinecrest Gardens.