South Beach
Xavier Cortada's "The Reclamation Project"

Blueprint Directory: Art + Design + Architecture, The Art Issue (Volume 2, Number 4, page 32), November-December 2006

Miami artist Xavier Cortada has made a number of public and large-scale installations, including an actual, colorfully painted plane, a wall of remembrances, and a fridge with leftover food.  Now he will recreate an "eco-art" intervention with little mangrove shoots "planted" all over South Beach.  About 2,500 mangrove seedlings in clear cups will be displayed in shop windows, dramatizing the destruction of the mangrove forests which once covered the island and sustained marine life.  With the help of volunteers (and public arts and eco groups backing the project), those seedlings will be planted for real on Key Biscayne on December 17.  November through January.

Volunteers can sign up online at www.reclamationproject.net.