The Bubble Pops / Movement Strategies:
Laurencia Strauss + Zlatko Ćosić

The Bubble Pops / Movement Strategies combines the work of Laurencia Strauss and Zlatko Ćosić to present moving images of water and collected adaptation advice. The project values adaptive experiences like immigrating as we face changes due to the climate crisis. As sea levels rise, water navigates new terrain, moving across imaginary borders between land and water and redefining valuable high ground. Bubbles emerge and pop when the air held in the oolitic limestone beneath is displaced. Most of us are already shifting in reaction to climate change impacts. The developing climate crisis raises questions of our potential future migrations which residents of Miami are uniquely qualified to address.

For over three years, people in Miami’s neighborhoods have contributed advice about adapting in exchange for popsicles. The Bubble Pops Popsicle Project has asked more than 1000 people in Miami-Dade County what they have learned from experiences like immigrating and surviving hurricanes and what advice they would share with others. In trade for their advice, they are given hand-crafted popsicles cast in the image of a snow globe depicting local areas at risk of sea-level rise and other climate change conditions. As the popsicles are consumed, the stick reveals advice collected from a previous participant in English, Spanish, and Haitian-Creole.

This body of knowledge grows and circulates, highlighting the value of immigrant experiences in our collective consciousness. The project builds a sense of interdependence as it activates our capacity to respond to situations of crisis and uncertainty – like projected climate change and the present pandemic.

This project is supported in part by WaveMaker Grants at Locust Projects, part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program.