image: Xavier Cortada, The Longitudinal Installation (at the South Pole), 2007.
About the Project
"I will place 12 pairs of shoes in a circle around the ceremonial South Pole as a temporary installation. Placing the shoes next to each other as a proxy for people across the globe, I aim to conceptually diminish the distance between them."
-- Xavier Cortada
Xavier Cortada painted and placed 24 in a circle around the North and South Poles, each representing a person living in a different part of the world affected by climate change. The shoes were placed next to each other in their respective longitudes as a proxy for people in the world below. After positioning the shoes, Cortada went to each shoe and recited a statement from a person living in that longitude about how climate change affected or will affect them.
Click hereto download The Longitudinal Installation PDF.
Xavier Cortada created art installations at the North Poleand South Pole to address environmental concerns at every point in between. He’s been commissioned to create art for the White House, the World Bank, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, Florida Botanical Gardens, the Miami Art Museum, Museum of Florida History, Miami Science Museum and the Frost Art Museum. Cortada has also developed numerous collaborative art projects globally, including peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Switzerland and South Africa, and eco-art projects in Holland, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Latvia and Taiwan. Cortada serves as artist-in-residence at the FIU College of Architecture + The Arts.