Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, Forests, and Indigenous People in Focus at COP25 in Madrid

This story starts in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and ends in Madrid, Spain but its focus is global in nature.

Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada for Greenpoint Earth Madrid 2019. Madrid, Spain. January 2020. (photo © Fer Alcala)

With the earth at the center of the eye, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada tells us that the first of two murals he painted for the recent COP 25 conferences is called “Forest Focus.” As the world has been watching the largest forests of Australia burning this month, he clearly knows what we’re all facing.

“With an image of the world as the iris,” he says, “This mural has an artistic focal point that symbolizes the values set forth at the COP25 conference being held in Madrid.”

The Cuban-born Street Artist, now based in Barcelona, was partnering with a public art program/platform called GreenPoint EARTH during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference, or COP 25 to create two new street art pieces.

Well known for his “Terrestrial Series” of artworks spread over masses of land that are visible by planes flying overhead, Rodriguez-Gerada blends social and ecological themes seamlessly with sometimes profound results.

His second mural of the series is a portrait of Hilda Pérez, a person indigenous to Peru and the Vice President of the National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru (ONAMIAP). The team says she was chosen to represent indigenous people because their voices are frequently marginalized in discussions about ecology and climate change, despite occupying 25-50 percent of the Earth’s land.

“We need to think of every tool in our toolkit because time is ultimately running out,” said Greenpoint Innovations founder Stephen Donofrio at a panel discussion with the artist at the Action Hub Event during the COP25.

He was speaking about the pivotal role that Street Art has been able to fill in education, as well as his own interest in partnering with artists and other collaborators to raise awareness for a myriad of environmental issues. “That’s why it’s really important that Chile/Madrid COP25 has this really strong message that it’s time for action.”

With more plans to involve Street Artists around the world “to inspire climate action with positive messages about the interconnected themes of nature, people, and climate,” Donofrio says he believes that the power of communication that Street Artists wield can be focused to make real, impactful change.

“The connectivity is really important in these projects to establish that we are dealing with globally challenging issues that boil down to a really local consequence.”