February 2022 – Oolite Arts invites Cortada to Aspen residency

Participatory eco-art returns to Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market

OOLITE HOME + AWAY RESIDENCY IN COLORADO INSPIRES NEW WORK

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During his Oolite Arts’ Home + Away residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen Snowmass, Colorado, artist Xavier Cortada is creating a series of new works to advance his social practice in Miami. Using state of the art facilities at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Cortada is creating both 3-D printed pieces and hand-carved wax sculptures that will be cast in bronze. 
 
Cortada’s bronzes will be displayed at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center (AHCAC) in Liberty City at the end of April as part of his ArtCARE exhibition. Addressing juvenile justice in the context of the broader social justice concerns impacting Miami communities (e.g., systemic racism, climate gentrification, etc.), the exhibition will serve to launch a community-building participatory art project and reforestation effort he is developing through AHCAC as part of the Socially Engaged Art in Law course he is co-teaching at the University of Miami.
 
Cortada was selected to attend the residency at Anderson Ranch Art Center by jurors Amy Galpin, chief curator of the Frost Art Museum, Leilani Lynch, Curator at The Bass and Lorie Mertes, Executive Director, Locust Projects. Cortada joins 13 other Miami-based artists in Colorado for their 2022 Oolite Home + Away residency from February 6 – March 9, 2022.
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PARTICIPATORY ECO-ART RETURNS TO 
PINECREST GARDENS FARMERS MARKET

Xavier Cortada’s volunteers are back at Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market every Sunday between 8am and 2pm engaging attendees with his participatory environmental art projects, as they did before the pandemic started. The environmental art education programming addresses sea level rise, climate change, and biodiversity loss, among other concerns. University of Miami student interns lead visitors in activities that inspire creativity, pique curiosity and foster environmental stewardship.

Cortada serves as artist-in-residence at Pinecrest Gardens, where his studio and social practice are based. Visit the gardens any time and see Cortada’s Eco-Art Colonnade, his public art pieces or his work on display at the Hibiscus Gallery.

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MIAMI MANGROVE FOREST EXHIBITION

In 2004, Xavier Cortada worked with 800 volunteers to metaphorically reforest the I-95 underpasses in Miami’s Downtown, Little Havana and Allapattah neighborhoods. Cortada’s graphite drawings of mangrove seedlings were used by Hands on Miami volunteers to paint dozens of columns beneath I-95 and create the Miami Mangrove Forest. This public art piece was the precursor to the Reclamation Project, Cortada’s long-term participatory eco-art project aimed at protecting coastal wetlands. 

Cortada’s Miami Mangrove Forest pencil drawings, first exhibited at the OMNIART Art Fair in December 2004, are on display at the Hibiscus Gallery in Pinecrest Gardens through June 12, 2022.

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