Above: “The wilderness watches over us in Miami,” billboard by Susan Silas. Photo courtesy of Deborah Mitchell.

Miami will officially begin “rewilding” this Thursday, Dec. 10, when the Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) program kicks off its Wild Billboards project at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). Funded by the Knight Arts Challenge, AIRIE will be displaying billboards with images from the Everglades in the urban heartland.

For instance, if you are driving on the State Road 112 from the east to the airport, or are traveling to Fort Lauderdale, or to Wynwood, you will already encounter the first billboard from Susan Silas, a New York-based artist who previously had an AIRIE fellowship in the River of Grass.

The AIRIE fellowships, first started in 2001, host up to a dozen artists, writers and musicians per year to stay in a base camp in the Everglades, and interact with one of the most unique natural ecosystems in the world, and the only subtropical wilderness in the United States. The mission is to have these residents from across the country then seed an appreciation for the environment through art.

“Emerging from the Swamp” photo by Dana Levy on billboard by AIRIE. Photo courtesy Deborah Mitchell.

The billboard campaign aims to bring these works directly to our metropolis, which numerous studies and stories have pinpointed as ground zero for experiencing the impact of climate change. The immediacy of grasping the importance of saving and treasuring the environment is particularly pertinent in South Florida, said Deborah Mitchell, executive director of AIRIE, which is why the organization wanted to jump start a conversation about conservation with the billboard campaign. Mitchell said that developing a new audience is important. For the billboard project, she said, several conservationist groups have been brought in, including the Audubon Society, and Everglades National Park. To add to the synergy, this year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service.

“Flight,” courtesy Susan Silas.

“Art and America’s National Parks have a long, rich history,” said Everglades National Park’s new superintendent Pedro Ramos. “The AIRIE Wild Billboard Campaign reminds us all of that history and inspires our community to develop a personal connection with their Everglades, America’s wildest and most special place.” Ramos will be on hand on Thursday at PAMM for the unveiling of the project.

AIRIE has had an eclectic array of art creators spend time in the Everglades since its inception, including people with architecture, photography, fiction writing, dance and alternative music backgrounds, along with visual artists. For Wild Billboards, representatives from the ArtCenter/South Florida, Locust Projects and the Frost Museum of Science selected the works to be shown on the urban signs, said Mitchell. Silas’ photos of birds were one of the initial choices, and her image of a majestic vulture – a much maligned bird that is a crucial inhabitant to a healthy ecosystem – is the first one displayed on the freeway, illuminated at night as well, with a message underneath reading “Find Your Park.” Maybe it is keeping an eye on us self-destructive drivers – or  reminding us to look up and pay attention.

Susan Silas photographs the ‘River of Grass.’ Courtesy of Deborah Mitchell.

 The billboard idea is to bond “the community, the world of the arts and the beauty of the Everglades,” said Mitchell, in a way that we focus our attention on environmental issues that ultimately affect us all.

That’s a reason why the project was awarded a Knight Arts Challenge grant. “Our mission at Knight Foundation is to make arts general, available everywhere you go in South Florida,” according to Victoria Rogers, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation. “When you bring the arts into people’s everyday lives, magical things happen. The arts not only inspire, they help people rethink their neighborhoods and communities. We hope the Wild Billboards will challenge South Floridians, their views of the wilderness and how we co-exist with the fragile ecosystem that surrounds us.”

At PAMM, in a museum designed to engage visitors with the vistas of Biscayne Bay, rather than work against it as so many other high rises do, “Art Talk: In Conversation with AIRIE” will include a discussion with Everglades National Park’s Ramos, Florida Audubon Society’s director Eric Draper, artist Silas and AIRIE’s Mitchell. A fundraiser will start earlier on the third-floor terrace.

Without art, the world would be a colder, crueler place; without our natural wilderness, the world would cease to exist in any meaningful way. Combining a love and preservation of both seems such an obvious mission, yet AIRIE is one of the few programs solely dedicated to that aim in South Florida.

AIRIE Wild Billboards at PAMM, cocktail fundraiser starts at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 10 ($20), talk and discussion at 7 p.m. (museum admission), PAMM, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; airie.org.