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Participatory eco-art returns to Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market
OOLITE HOME + AWAY RESIDENCY IN COLORADO INSPIRES NEW WORK

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.
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.