This is under a simple tree canopy project featuring Brandon Clark.

This is an experimentation and art and advocacy.

The goal of this show is to present aesthetically pleasing art by an incredible conceptual artist from Miami Dade County, an architect by day, an artist at night.

But combining that aesthetic with a policy advocacy around promoting tree canopy and working-class communities, particularly African American communities.

More vulnerable communities tend to have less shade, which means more heat, which means fewer spaces for community gathering.

This show really highlights that injustice and really highlights the inequity when it comes to the ways in which climate impacts these communities.

(Christopher) I went to Hampton University.

Hampton University was founded under a simple tree.

The name of that tree is called Emancipation Oak, and under that tree was the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in the South.

And I've always been fascinated about the history of African Americans to trees.

You know, many of these people in my history did not have buildings.

So everything happened under a tree.

And my university was literally founded under a tree where this woman by the name of Mary Peek, began to educate free, emancipated folk during the Civil War.

And that led to the founding of one of the most important universities in this country.

So that's kind of how, you know, some of the roots, if you will, of how the show conceptually got started.

(Rebecca) I am very involved in a big project at FIU, a four-year project called Commons for Justice race, Risk and Resilience, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation and is managed by the Extreme Events Institute at FIU.

It's this four-year investigation looking at eight black and brown communities across Greater Miami as regards to how each of them is coping with, understands resilient within climate change, the climate crisis with particular attention to natural disaster.

My job on the grant was to work with artists and curators throughout Miami to support them in their projects along those themes.

Since Chris and I had worked together and he had mentioned that he was working with artists Brandon Clark to create this show, it was a perfect match.

And through the Mellon grant comments for justice, we've been able to support this exhibition and we've been able to support programming and so forth.

(Christopher) Our show is broken down into three sections.

We have a show that's focused on the crown or the canopy of a tree.

We have a section that's dealing with the roots of a tree, and then we have a section that's dealing with the leaves, and we have installations that reflect all three of the parts or the major parts of a of a of a tree.

This is an installation of five pieces called evergreen one, two, three, four and five.

This is evergreen one.

This is what nature looks like when it's not bothered by humanity or development.

Brandon, of course, assembles on the back of of canvases because he wants you to get inside of the image and the art as you go down from evergreen one, two, three, four and five, you're going to see less of the moss.

And that's a metaphor for what's happening in our community.

The second section is called uprooted, and it's an installation of Dade County pine trees that were uprooted from Hurricane Andrew.

Brandon was able to gather several of these uprooted trees and install them, and we can actually see the roots of a tree.

These ten pieces represent ten trees, individual trees in the community where I personally gathered the leaves from to embed in the artwork that Brandon Clark designed and painted.

You'll see an acrylic cover with words.

All of these together make up a poem.

(Rebecca) They chose particular trees, in particular neighborhoods that play a role.

And a lot of that role is to is partly to create social infrastructure, is to create a gathering place for communities.

When that tree is no longer there, it's not just the heat, although that's of course, incredibly important, but it also weighs on the kind of social spaces for communities to gather.

So, I mean, why should people care?

I mean, people should care because I would say it's a human rights issue.

If you have a neighborhood with a lot of concrete, especially with all the development going on, fewer trees, I mean, people are hotter and hotter.

Maybe they can't afford air conditioning.

I mean, you can think about the multitude of scenarios that weigh on these communities and make day- to-day living that much harder.

And a lot of that really has to do with these issues of environmental injustice, including the fading and the lessening of tree canopy.

(Christopher) I know through my past experience working in government relations that it's people that move things long standing.

And when people decide they want something, policymakers follow, it's really that simple, especially when it's something that has no partisan value.

It's really so intuitive that once you just acknowledge it, we got you.

(Rebecca) What Chris has done is, has planned a series of events that really are meant to be kind of advocacy events.

It’s not just you walk in and you're like, oh, I feel sad or I feel mad or how beautiful, but to take that and affect change, because in the end, I think that's the power of art, that's, you know, that it's not just to look at it on the walls, but art has the potential for people to have individual emotive connections to things and to issues that so deeply affect all of us.

And to take that and get the right people in the room and affect change.

(Christopher) We have to engage people, create the culture of of understanding what tree canopy does to your community, how important it is for your community and your children.

And then from there, policy can be advocated.

We need to cool off our community.

It's very important.

From a policy perspective, it's very important.

But from a social gathering perspective, I think when we understand that this is important, then it makes it a lot easier to make the policy choices necessary, because I don't think, again, I don't think anybody can argue with the importance of shade.