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Eco-Art

Followers of art and friends of the environment learned about a cutting-edge art practice April 2-5 at Eco-Art Treasure Coast. Through seminars and films, the symposium demonstrated how public interaction with art can solve environmental problems.

The Arts Council in collaboration with the South Florida Environmental Art Project presented Florida's first symposium on Eco-Art. The non-profit organization is bringing in world-renowned artists who promote the environment through their creative work. The program, funded by a grant from the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties and Women Supporting the Arts, emphasizes direct interaction between artist and audience.

"People are used to artists working alone to produce paintings of nature, but Eco-Art is so much more," said Nancy K. Turrell, Executive Director of the Arts Council. "Our program will educate the community about a new form of art that improves our environment." The symposium and exhibition launched a two-year project that will result in the creation of an ecoart project and newly trained local ecoartists.

Eco-Art Treasure Coast Attracts Hundreds of People

Ecoart Treasure Coast attracted hundreds of people to a four-day symposium in early April. Artists, business professionals, government officials and local citizens learned about the Ecoart movement and its application on the Treasure Coast. Audiences gathered at locations around Martin County to hear speakers, watch documentaries and participate in panel discussions. Here are some photos from those events.

  • EcoArt Treasure Cost Symposium Speakers:

  • Sam Bower is co-founder and executive director of greenmuseum.org, the
    most comprehensive website on the environmental art movement. He helped create environmental art in San Francisco as part of the group Meadowsweet Dairy. Bower served as a founding board member of Dreamfish and on the boards and advisory boards of art and environment-related nonprofits and art projects.


  • Xavier Cortada is a Florida ecoartist and creator of a mangrove reclamation and native tree reforestation effort called Reclamation Project. A new version of the project will be featured at Ecoart Treasure Coast. Cortada has worked with groups worldwide to produce numerous large-scale collaborative art projects and has been commissioned to create art for the White House, the Florida Supreme Court, the Florida Governor's Mansion, the Miami Art Museum and the Museum of Florida History.

  • Betsy Damon is an internationally known, award-winning artist and ecologist who has spent 30 years pioneering a collaborative form of ecological art. She creates art parks featuring sculptural flow forms and public, art events to help clean urban waterways and raise water awareness around the globe. Her nonprofit organization, Keepers of the Waters, provides information and technical support for others working with similar principles and processes.

  • Michael Singer transforms public art, architecture, landscape and planning projects into successful models for urban and ecological renewal. He designed an award-winning, ecoart power plant in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 1993, The New York Times chose Singer's design of a massive waste recycling and transfer station in Phoenix as one of the top eight design events of the year. His work opened new possibilities for outdoor and indoor sculpture and contributed to the definition of site-specific art and the development of public places.

EcoArt Films

During EcoArt Treasure Coast, five gatherings were hosted, four at the Elliott Museum and one at the Blake Library, to encourage a dialogue about what ecoart can be. The featured films were:

"The Indian River Lagoon: Gateway to Saving the Everglades," the documentary on the lagoon and St. Lucie River produced by The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, with "The Reclamation Project," about Xavier Cortada's work that began on Earth Day 2006 to restore mangroves in South Florida.

"Ganga -- from the Ground Up," about man-made damage to India's sacred Ganges river, with "A Gathering of Waters: The Rio Grande, Source to the Sea," about a symbolic carrying of river water to the ocean.

"Nor Any Drop to Drink - Palestine," about the impact of water shortages on Palestinians, with "Concrete Creek," by Israeli Eco-Artist Shai Zakai, whose artwork helped save a creek that had been used as a dump site.

"Croaking Frogs: Before it's too Late," about efforts to save the broadest mass extinction of a species since the dinosaur, with "Malap Amphibian Deformity Project," which studies threatened amphibians through fine art imaging.

"Water and Autonomy," which examines the lack of potable water for indigenous communities in Mexico, with "Desert Rainwater Harvesting," about how Native Americans worked with eco-artists, and university professors and students to improve water management and promote tribal culture.


Our Collaborator: South Florida Environmental Art Project

SFEAP MISSION: To catalyze the emergence of South Florida as a major center for the practice of ECOART.

For more information, please go to sfeap.org, or contact Mary Jo Aagerstoun, Founder/President of SFEAP, Inc. mjaagerstoun@sfeap.org or 561-881-5658

  • Suburban Subaru
    Suburban SubaruSuburban Subaru and Ed Vossen are providing EcoArt Treasure Coast's mentor artist, Betsy Damon, with a Subaru for her visits to Stuart during the course of her work with the apprentice ecoartists.

    Subaru was selected as a company that understands its responsibility to the global environment, society at large, our customers, our distribution network and our employees. As we conduct our business operations into the future, we commit to establish and maintain an effective environmental management system that extends further than just meeting the stated environmental laws and regulations, and that encompasses the integration of sound environmental practices in all of our business decisions. For more about Subaru's corporate committment to the environment visit: http://www.subaru.com/company/environmental-policy.html