In 2006, artist Xavier Cortada launched the “Reclamation Project” by working with volunteers to create vertical gardens (grid-like installations of mangrove seedlings in clear, water-filled cups dangling on retail windows) across Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road and then later planting them along Biscayne Bay. This effort pioneered eco-art in South Florida and launched Cortada’s eco-art practice. These successful habitat restoration activities continue today through the Frost Science Museum’s Museum Volunteers for the Environment (MUVE) program.

Since the inception of the “Reclamation Project,” over 8,000 volunteers have restored more than 25 acres of coastal habitats. An iteration of this project focused on planting salt-tolerant trees inland in preparation for saltwater intrusion, “Plan(T),” saw eco-art installations and programming in all 45 of Miami-Dade County’s public libraries and dozens of schools. The culmination of these efforts recently earned Cortada the Environmental Law Institute’s 2021 “Wetlands Hero Award.”

15 YEARS OF

RECLAMATION PROJECT

University of Miami Professor of Practice Xavier Cortada exhibits a quindecennial of engaging Floridians in native vegetation reforestation at the UM CAS Wynwood Gallery
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ABOUT RECLAMATION PROJECT
Reclamation Project was launched on Earth Day 2006 at the Bass Museum with two hundred fifty-two red mangrove seedlings installed in a grid in clear, water-filled cups
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WHY SHOULD WE

PROTECT MANGROVES?

Mangrove forests provide a variety of services to humans and ecosystems alike including protection from storm surge and erosion, shelter for wildlife, and storage of carbon dioxide
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history

Inspired by his 2003 “Florida Mangrove” Hispanic Heritage Mural (which Governor Bush unveiled at the Capitol), Cortada led 800 volunteers in painting the “Miami Mangrove Forest” in 2004. A metaphoric reforestation of downtown Miami, they painted Cortada’s images of mangrove seedlings on dozens of columns beneath I-95, each seedling functioning as a visual metaphor of the immigrant: floating to a new shore, putting down roots and contributing to a fertile new home community. Two years later, after witnessing the destruction of mangrove forests on a trip to the Florida Keys, Cortada created the “Reclamation Project.”