CLIMA 2016 | Do not open

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Cortada worksDo Not Open | Climate Refugees | Hot for Hialeah | Psychoanalysis of Climate ChangeReclamation Project | Flor 500
LTER : Everglades (Florida) | HJ Andrews (Oregon) | Hubbard Brook (New Hampshire)

DO NOT OPEN:  Participant Instructions | Artist’s Poem

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DO NOT OPEN

We are pioneers and runaway slaves and political refugees making new home.
In a strange place built on water.
With hurricanes.
And more.

We’ve witnessed destruction and loss.
But now face our greatest challenge:  Water is rising and it won’t recede.

We must summon courage, share wisdom with those who will follow.
We must tell them who we are.  We must explain what we saw.  We must show them how we responded.
We must help them navigate the greater chaos. To come.

We must write it all down.  Seal it in an envelope.
For them.  To read.

Later.

Tell them not to open it for a hundred years.
Or perhaps half that time, if you think they can’t wait that long.

Or maybe sooner;
In 25 years, when everyone will accept that the problem is real.
They will listen to us then.  They will finally understand.
We will all unite
As Antarctica comes to town.

Or tell them
Do not open for two hundred years.
When they will yearn most to hear from those of us
who once walked on land.

                                                                                          –Xavier Cortada

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The artist stands before his work, Testamento,” at the CLIMA 2015 exhibit.  Photo by C.M. Guerrero, El Nuevo Herald

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