PROJECT STATEMENT
The City of
Miami asked Hands on Miami,
a
not-for-profit whose mission is building community by engaging
people in volunteer service,
to help its Neighborhood Enhancement Team (NET)
offices beautify the Interstate’s underpasses in the Downtown
and Little Havana neighborhoods, as well as a flyover in the
Allapattah neighborhood. Hands on
Miami turned to Xavier Cortada to design artwork for the sites
in a way that would make the entire project a cohesive and
uniform art piece.
Cortada
chose the image of the mangrove tree as the centerpiece of
this project to the transform clammy, dingy and dark places
beneath Miami’s highways. Cortada decided to recreate the
underpass'
natural environment when the first European settlers arrived:
a mangrove forest.
Miami is a
young City. Instead of painting a full grown forest, Cortada
chose to portray the mangrove early in its lifecycle of
growth: a sea of floating seedlings readying to set their
roots. Mangrove seedlings serve as a metaphor to honor the
people who made the journey to Miami and decided to set their
roots here. "We’ve all come from different places to make Miami
our home," said Cortada, "much like a mangrove seed washes up and takes root
on a Florida sandbar and helps builds new land where new life
can take hold."
The mangrove
roots symbolize the residents who have set roots in their
neighborhood and built community. “Having this painted
forest's roots spread across these different neighborhoods,
depicts our interconnectedness,” stated the artist, “by reaching
out to others, we build a stronger community, much like the
walking feet of mangrove roots do to build formidable
structures and nurture new life.”
Indeed, that is what
hundreds of volunteers did on Hands on Miami Day 2004, when
they began the transformation of what were once blighted
areas.
Using
8 foot by 4 foot
stencils
designed by the artist, Hands on Miami volunteers painted
three mangrove seedlings on each of the underpass' columns.
Each seedling was painted in one of 18 colors. The areas
around each seedling were painted in blues to simulate the sea
and sky. Students from Miami International University of Art
and Design then returned to the downtown site to work on the
colored seedlings. Using black paint they executed unique
drawings Cortada created for each and every seedling.
Together,
hundreds of volunteers came together to help transform the
neighborhoods into works of art. Using paint, they planted
these unique seedlings that will grow into the Miami Mangrove
Forest and inspire others to reach out to other neighborhoods
in building a stronger Miami.
Portraying
the natural world in urban spaces is also important because it
reminds us of what was here before all the concrete was
poured. As generations and growth transform Miami, we as a
people are grounded by nature, the one constant in this ever
changing and wonderful city.
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