(MIAMI, FL. May. 6, 2021) – Just in time for American Wetlands Month in May, local Miami eco-artist, Xavier Cortada, honors the 15-year anniversary of his participatory eco-art project, The Reclamation Project. Through an exhibition at the University of Miami Wynwood Gallery, he showcases the project’s quindecennial and its subsequent iterations which use the power of art to connect South Floridians with their local environment.

Cortada is an artist and professor of practice at the University of Miami. For 15 years, he has creatively engaged fellow Miami-Dade County residents in learning about, conserving and restoring mangrove forests. What began as a childhood fascination with mangroves’ strangely shaped roots and propagules evolved into a socially engaged art practice extolling mangroves’ value to the local ecosystem.

Inspired by the Reclamation Project, Cortada has also created other highly innovative eco-art projects to mobilize Miamians to care for and restore mangroves. His succeeding projects involve county-wide public and private school educational Earth Day programming (Native Flags), a volunteering project encouraging neighbors to build up climate change resiliency by growing salt-tolerant mangroves in their yards (Plan(T)), and the nation’s first underwater homeowner’s association to address the threat of rising seas and salt-water intrusion into their fresh water aquifer (Underwater HOA).

The success of his eco-art projects in raising awareness for local wetland protection and coastal reforestation has granted him a 2021 National Wetland Award by the Environmental Law Institute. ELI’s National Wetland Award program is supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Natural Resource Conservation Service.

“The recipients of the National Wetlands Awards are on the forefront of protecting wetland resources in the face of development and climate impacts,” said ELI President Scott Fulton. “Through their dedication and achievements—even in the midst of a pandemic—they inspire wetlands protection across the country and worldwide. After the tumultuous year we’ve experienced, I welcome and celebrate the optimism, energy, and hope these individuals bring forth through their work.”

Cortada’s solo exhibit, “The Reclamation Project: Engaging Community For 15 Years Through Participatory Eco-art,” honors the quindecennial of his participatory eco-art project at the University of Miami Wynwood Gallery from May 8 through May 28. Mangrove seedlings in clear, water-filled cups – like those he first installed in a grid at the Bass Museum on Earth Day 2006 – are on display, as well as the original mangrove drawings used in his 2004 Downtown metaphorical restoration effort, Miami Mangrove Forest.

The Gallery is currently only open to University of Miami faculty and students by appointment only and on a limited basis. To schedule a visit, please contact Milly Cardoso, Gallery Director at m.cardoso1@miami.edu, or call (305) 284-3161. 

The general public can view the online exhibition at www.cortada.com/15-years-of-reclamation-project/.

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Xavier Cortada is an artist and professor of practice at the University of Miami Department of Art and Art History. Over the past three decades, the Cuban-American artist has created art at the North and South poles and across 6 continents, including more than 100 public artworks and dozens of installations, collaborative murals and socially engaged projects. The crux of Cortada’s work finds itself rooted in a deep conceptual engagement of his participants. Particularly environmentally and socially focused, the work Cortada develops is intended to generate awareness and action towards issues of global climate change and social justice. Learn more at www.cortada.com.