The Art of Conservation

When walking through the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center at the Everglades National Park, I stumbled upon a room that I would not expect to find in a nature reserve. The room had white walls with several art installations claiming their own space to draw on your attention. One photograph was a man masked as a heron wading in front of cypress trees of the Everglades, depicting how the landscape shaped the heron's behaviors and made it a home. 

Another installation streamed a video of a woman performing an improvisational dance in the thick of the Everglades. Her body moved in slow motion, overlapping blurs of her previous movements which cleared to reveal her next spontaneous expression of energy. Movement flowed through her body like a wave, receiving impulse from the wind, trees, and chirps that surrounded her. Her piece showed that us human beings are truly one with nature, acting together harmoniously.

A third piece showed choreography of a dancer in the Everglades, being one with the wind and the Earth. She wore all white, with her dress blowing with the breeze and glowing with the sun. She sat on the Earth, brushing the dusty mud with her hands and lifting it to fly away in the wind. I thought her meaning was similar, showing the sacred connection we have with the Earth that surrounds us, supports us as the ground beneath our feet, and that gave birth to us.

These art installations were showcased by AIRIE -- Artists in Residence in Everglades. This organization seeks to spark awareness and thus activism in supporting conservation efforts that protect natural lands and their fragile ecosystems while they still exist, specifically pertaining to the Everglades. Artists of all kinds, being musicians, writers, dancers, sculptors, videographers, and multi-media artists, can showcase their art of awareness in performances and installations in the Everglades, thanks to funding from the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program. Some of this funding went to the arts to create another sector of public outreach to gain support for protecting these precious, sacred ecosystems.

When humans spend time in nature, connecting with the other beings that were born here and share the same space to live, their hearts are unwillingly opened. We realize that our actions affect all of the other creatures sharing our planet, whether it be a butterfly, a cypress tree, or another human being. We must remember the warm, tingling feeling of happiness that nature arises within us and strive to give this feeling of harmony back to nature. Through communicating this through the arts, the message can be sent in a more tender way than through factual science and statistics.

As we exited the sanctuary, we were greeted by heavenly clouds fluffed white by sun beams while us human beings connected in harmony with the beings around us, vibrating the Everglades atmosphere.