Hialeah, Florida high school students crowded into the city’s Milander Center for Arts on January 19, 2016 to see Honoring the Future’s Climate Art & Action exhibition. The exhibition, on display at the Center since November, 2015, was scheduled to close the following day.
The students enjoyed a guided tour of the exhibition and a Climate SmART slide presentation and artists’ talk on impacts of, and solutions to, climate change. Led by Honoring the Future Director Fran Dubrowski, the presentation featured climate art from across the nation and talks by Honoring the Future’s Arts Advisor Peter Handler, winner of a national award for art inspiring conservation in 2015, and Xavier Cortada, the internationally renowned Miami artist who created a digital artwork, ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys), as part of Honoring the Future’s effort to welcome Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical in 2015.
Students had a chance to voice their concerns about climate change in performance art led by Cortada.
Artist Xavier Cortada (center with microphone) leads students in performance art about climate change.
Marla Alpizar, Director of Hialeah’s Education and Community Services Department, told Honoring the Future: “I cannot thank you enough for coming down and conducting the panel. I think I speak for everyone when I say how much we enjoyed it and how stimulating it was.”
At the conclusion of the program, Cortada presented Dubrowski and Handler with prints of a watercolor Cortada had made from Antarctic ice and sediment while he was a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer’s Fellow at the South Pole in 2007.
Artist Xavier Cortada (right) presents Honoring the Future Director Fran Dubrowski (left) and Arts Advisor Peter Handler (center) prints of a watercolor Cortada made using Antarctic ice and sediment.
The following day, Dubrowski addressed first year law students at St. Thomas University in Miami, urging the students to follow Pope Francis’ call to use their talents and skills to make a difference on climate change. St. Thomas Professor Annie Chan told Dubrowski, “Your insights impacted quite a few students’ perceptions of the difference a lawyer can make…. One student remarked that he intended to begin now, and planned on picking up a piece of trash each day and recycling it…. I am confident that you impacted quite a few students and their future choices.”
