Exhibited as part of the Tránsitos de lo Sagrado exhibition at Fundación Sebastián in Mexico City, “Fernando” is a portrait of Via Verde founder Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, and the first in a series of portraits presenting green technology innovators and researchers dedicating to restoring the balance of a natural ecosystem in our over-polluted and populated world.
I met with M. Ortiz in a Mexico City park last February . Before recording, he explained his academic path: through studies in architecture and sustained interests in both physics and art, he eventually discovered that his true passion was the workings of nature and plants. The combination of his experiences and hopes for the future led him to found the projects Verde Vertical and Via Verde.
You can hear him explain more about Via Verde, and their challenges and goals in a first interview excerpt here:
"We asked around 3000 people, all around the city (…) Would you like to see these transformations happen in your city? …And 98.7% said, obviously, yes!”
The interview excerpt below ends on this positive reaction for seeing the Via Verde project transform Mexico into a greener city. But the project itself needs to be financially supported in order to grow, and the public founding route was not sufficient to support the ambitions of the project, which turned to sponsors (private companies who are allowed to advertise along the Via) in order to build its expanding network of green columns.
Its innovative technologies have attracted international attention and the projects plans to grow in cities all over the world.
To learn more about Verde Vertical : http://verticalgreen.com/index.html
And Via Verde: https://www.facebook.com/viaverdecdmx/