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

5 Actions to Stop Rising Seas: Hit it! | Burn it! | Eat it! | Freeze it! | Bury it! video documentation of performance, 2015
Xavier Cortada

5 Actions to Stop Rising Seas was created by Xavier Cortada during April-May 2015 during an artist residency at the Rising Seas Confab 2015, Rauschenberg Studio, Captiva, Florida. In this performance, Cortada comments with irony on the weak to non-existent actions being taken to address both the causes and the imminent realities of climate disruption in a State clearly at the epicenter of potential disaster—one which has been caused by inadequate action globally on soaring levels of greenhouse gases related to human activity.

Cortada has long been involved in art that intervenes in, and/or comments upon environmental problems. He has created environmental installations (North Pole and South Pole) and direct-impact ecological art projects, in Florida, around the US, and internationally, (Taiwan, Hawaii and Holland).

Xavier Cortada is Florida-educated and has lived in Miami since he was three. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at FIU School of Environment, Arts and Society | College of Arts, Science & Education and the College of Communication, Architecture + the Arts. (https://www.cortada.org)

5 Actions video:

The video was premiered at the CLIMA art exhibit, Cortada’s solo art exhibit in Hialeah Florida during the the COP21 Paris Climate Talks in December 2015.  To learn more about the CLIMA project and other works addressing sea level rise, global climate change and biodiversity, please visit www.cortada.com/clima

Direct Actions Seminar (7:08)

Hit it! (1:23)

Burn it!  (4:53)

Eat it! (6:31)

Freeze it!  (1:43)

Bury it! (6:47)

In acknowledgement of the support from the Rauschenberg Residency/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Florida International University and the City of Hialeah.

About the Artist: 

Xavier Cortada serves as Artist-in-Residence at FIU School of Environment, Arts and Society | College of Arts, Science & Education and the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts.

Cortada often engages scientists in his art-making: At CERN, Cortada and a particle physicist created a permanent digital-art piece to celebrate the Higgs boson discovery. He has collaborated with a population geneticist to explore our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000-years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesize a DNA strand from a sequence 400 museum visitors randomly generated, and with botanists to develop multi-year participatory eco-art efforts to reforest mangroves, native trees and wildflowers across Florida.

The Miami artist has created environmental installations (North Pole and South Pole) and eco-art (Taiwan, Hawaii and Holland) projects, 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.

Fore more info visit https://www.cortada.org